Olive Grove

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Twilight Sparkle was in a tall, vast library. It had all the comforts of her home-library and a seemingly endless supply of books for her to read. She galloped up and down and all along the rows of books, magically pulling them out, looking them over and reorganizing them. It was a dream come true!

"Heheehee! Yay! This is just--awesome!"

Still reorganizing, she held a few books in front of her. "Hmm... now which should I read first?" She looked over several titles: The Secret Histories of Star Swirl the Bearded, Alicorn Magic for Gifted Unicorns, How to Make the Best of Your Work-space, Everypony's Guide to Dragons, The Magic of Friendship, Obscure and Under-Rated Masterpieces of Pony Paintings.

"Oh! It's so hard to choose just one to start."

She called to Spike to bring her whatever book he happened to have in his claws. This would be much easier: she could just have Spike bring her books so she wouldn't have to waste time deciding which to read in what order. He came up a flight of stairs with a big book in his claws. Twilight quickly snatched it with her magic and opened it to the first page: 'Time Spells.'

"Perfect! Thank you Spike, My Number One Assistant." She pat him on the head and he disappeared down the same flight of stairs he had come up.

She turned a page and was shocked to find it blank. She turned another. Blank. And another. Blank. Another. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank!

"Haaaargh! What's with this?" She turned one more page. It was... black! "Huh?" She dropped the book and jumped back when the black began to leak off the pages and form the shape of a pony.

"Spike, quick!"

Spike didn't come. She grabbed some books from the shelf behind her and hid behind them, though ready to cast a spell if necessary.

"Twilight Sparkle, I require you assistance."

It was a familiar voice. Twilight peaked between the books to see--

"Princess Luna! Am I glad to see you! Where's the black shifty--"

"That was me."

"Oh. Wait. What are you doing here?"

"This is your dream, Twilight Sparkle. Now, quickly. I haven't much time." She magically pulled Twilight from the mound of books and set her close to herself. She hunched down close to Twilight's ear. "Discord is attempting to return."

"What?!"

"Shh, shh. He has entered the dreams of one, 'Cherry Garden.' A painter pony with a light lime mane and tail, cut in the same style as your friend Cherry Berry's, and a creamy-peach coat; her cutie mark is three pairs of cherries. I've been in her dreams the past few nights attempting to stop him, but my sister and I feel this is a job for you."

"Me? But I can't--I don't even know how to enter dreams."

"I will teach you. But please, Twilight Sparkle, I must hurry and finish. He has been attempting to use this pony's passionate creativity and natural sensitivity to bring his chaos back and ensure his release from his current captivity so he can once again spread it across Equestria. You have to go into Cherry Garden's dreams and put a stop to him before he can realize his plans. You must once again wield the Elements of Harmony and defeat him. But be very careful, he has... knock, knock... gurghe, hmmph... knock, knock, knock..."

"Huh? what?!"

The dream library rippled away and Twilight awoke to find herself face down in a book on the floor, papers spread out around her. She checked the clock: 10pm. She must have passed-out while studying... again. The lights were off and she heard snoring above her and assumed Spike must have fallen asleep too.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

She started, lit a candle, and with a yawn sleepily made her way to the front door. When she opened the door and saw that it was Cherry Garden, just as Princess Luna had described, she remembered her dream and what the Princess had told her.

"You must be Cherry Garden." Cherry Garden had noticeable bags under her lavender eyes. Twilight recognized her, also, as one of the ponies who had come to her to complain when Pinkie Pie had duplicated herself.

"Yes. I was told you could help me with my nightmares?" She sounded exhausted.

"Yes, yes. Please come inside and sit down."

Cherry Garden slowly entered. Twilight sat her down in the kitchen (a relatively unused room).

"Can I get you anything? Snacks, something to drink? Hot coco, water, cider, tea?"

"I don't--"

"How about some white tea? My friend Zecora got it for me."

"Okay..." Cherry Garden slumped on the table, absently gazing at the ceiling.

Twilight talked nervously as she heated the water. "These nightmares must be really bad."

"They are! I haven't had much sleep in four nights... five nights?" She spoke dreamily, almost half asleep. "But I can't sleep! Every time I do I have horrible nightmares with that strange creature making everything all... chaotic! And when I wake up I always find things in my house have been changed--water is chocolate milk--a bird is a gummy bear--my bed is on the ceiling--my paintings are alive!" She pulled up a saddle-bag she had on her that Twilight hadn't noticed before. She took out a painted canvas. "Just look!" She turned it so Twilight could see. Twilight nearly screamed at what she saw. It was a portrait of Discord's statue, still locked in that same fearful expression he wore when Twilight and her friends had defeated him. The whole picture was painted in dashed, expressive lines which in a normal painting would have been still, but were now instead moving. Discord's eyes seemed to faintly glow and subtly and slowly move into a sinister glare.

Seeing that the picture made Twilight uneasy, she attempted to return it to her bag. "Hey, there's something in here." She threw her saddle-bag on the table and took out what was in it. It was a book. "What is this doing--"

"Let me see!" Twilight was in the middle of putting the tea leaves into the cups when she slept across the kitchen and stole the book from Cherry Garden's hooves. "'Dreaming Spells.' Ah-hah! Thank you Princess Luna!" She embraced it and then set it on the table to read. It surprised her that the pages were still unbroken despite its aged appearance.

Cherry Garden languidly put away the painting. She stared at Twilight absently and began to take up her saddle-bag as though it were a cup; upon realizing it wasn't, she indifferently let it drop to the floor.

"Okay, this spell seems surprisingly easy. All it really requires is for you to be asleep."

"Oooh no!" Cherry Garden bolted up in fright. "I'm not going to sleep again! You don't know what it's like--you can't make me!"

Twilight thought she would say as much. Well, she thought, It was a good thing I suggested tea to drink; that should help calm her nerves and let her sleep.

"Alright. We could instead, I guess, just stay up and talk and play games." Twilight began brewing the tea as she talked.

"That sounds good! What do you want to do first?" Even as she tried to talk excitedly, Cherry Garden nearly dozed off her chair.

Twilight brought the two cups of tea to the table, moved the book onto an empty chair, and took the seat opposite Cherry Garden.

"Well, let's see," Twilight enthusiastically began. "We could read my book about advanced organization skills--or we could play word games--or how about we go on the balcony, and we could name the constellations--ooh, ooh! Or we could--"

"I'm--Those don't sound too interesting, no offence or anything. Those just aren't my things...."

"I see...."

"What... um, do you know about these nightmares I've been having?"

"Here, drink some tea and I'll tell you." Twilight was still a little scared and nervous but she did her best to feign calmness in attempt to help relax Cherry Garden.

Cherry Garden slowly lifted her her cup and softly blew across the surface, her nose nearly falling in it. She took a sip and winced at the sudden bitterness.

"Go on now, drink up!"

Twilight took a long sip of her own tea. "I need to calm my nerves too," she said to herself.

Cherry Garden took a few more forced sips, each time her face turning a little from disgust to delight in the taste. Soon she took sips because she wanted to.

Between sips of her own tea, Twilight told Cherry Garden about Discord, how her and her friends defeated him, and about what Princess Luna had told her in her dream.

"So that was Princess Luna in my dreams these past few nights. And it has been this draca--dracocos... Discord thing that's been giving me nightmares." Cherry garden spoke with the utmost placidity. "But what I don't understand is why both Princess Luna and Discord told me to come to you for help tonight."

"WHAT?!" Twilight screamed and started up, nearly spilling her tea. She sank back down and covered her mouth, first listening for Spike's snoring then looking over at Cherry Garden. It was too late: she was already dead-asleep on the table, the last of her tea spilling onto the floor. She desperately wanted to wake her back up and find out what she meant by saying both Luna and Discord told her to come to her for help, but she didn't have time: she had to go into Cherry Garden's dreams and stop Discord before she woke.

"I'll just have to find out when I get there, or ask Princess Luna if I see her in Cherry Garden's dreams. Either way, I must set to work!" And set to work she did. She was so excited to perform a new spell, she forgot how nervous she was.

She magically levitated Cherry Garden out onto the couch, bringing the book with her. She sat on a few soft pillows on the ground next to Cherry Garden, opened the book to the correct page, and read how to do the spell a few times before performing it and slipping magically into Cherry Garden's dreams.

"Did it work?" Twilight wondered, wondering at the unchanged scene.

"I wish they would only take me as I am..." Cherry Garden muttered in her sleep. "Simple--Simple--simplicity is the ultimate sophistication..."

There was something strange about the way Cherry Garden looked. Twilight leaned in closer.

"...No doubt there will be some who will see the truth in what I paint... Nature is never superfluous..."

She was still muttering, but there was something strange about her mouth...was it moving?

"I wish it were all over now..."

Twilight fell back in shock: Cherry Garden's mouth didn't move when she spoke!

Twilight looked around the library anxiously. She tried to look closely at the things around her in the dim candle-light. Everything seemed to have a flow, like solid, flowing water. Everything looked...alive.

"But how is that possible? Wait, of course it isn't possible, because I'm in Cherry Garden's dreams!" She clapped giddily. "I can't believe it actually worked!"

Remembering her mission, she became serious. She looked the sleeping Cherry Garden over and thought it best that she wasn't woken, and that she'd be safest here in the library anyway. She went to the kitchen and took Cherry Garden's saddle-bag with the painting in it, thinking it might come in handy, put the 'Dreaming Spells' book in it, backed the whole thing, and headed outside.

But she didn't step out into Ponyville. Before her rose a tall, dark hill that seemed to flow towards her. The ground at her hooves was very bizarre: a base of earthly brown with strokes of night blues and violets and blacks--there were even yellow-brown, pink, and lighter blue, violet, and green streaks seen--all moving and flowing in the direction of the hill.

"Cherry Garden certainly has the strangest dreams, visually."

Undeterred, focused on her mission, she made her way up the hill. Though the ground seemed to move, it felt just like normal, still, solid ground. She looked up the hill and saw the sky a patched, deep indigo with darker and lighter bits.

When she finally reached the top she was overlooking the most beautiful nightscape of a small valley she had ever seen. To her left, a great towering cypress, black and lined with faint traces of red and green, rising like fire. Down in the valley were a dozen or so small buildings, roofs of steely grays and blues, and some red dashed with green, walls blue, gray, green, and brown, with a splash of yellow in those buildings where warm light escaped from some of the windows; a bright silvery spire shot up from a sharp-roofed building in the center of the town; a good amount of the streets were obscured from her sight by the dark green and blue foliage that flooded the town. On the other side of the small valley, just behind the small town, were flowing ultramarine hills that rolled like great waves in a vast ocean; at the base of these hills were unclear signs of farmed plants, striking with their lighter contrasts of green and blue and white on the black ground. And then--the sky!

"Oh my--!" Twilight nearly fell over looking at it. Everything in the sky was in constant motion: bright yellow stars with thick halos seemed to appear in vortexes all over the sky; a high-yellow crescent moon, more to the right of her, was drowning in a swirl of sulfur-yellow strokes edged with lime green that melted onto the feverishly flowing indigo-violet sky; the Milky-Way, running all throughout the sky with its bright strokes of white, blue, yellow, green, and even some burnt-brown strokes, swirled and crashed like a monster, and yet only making the whole scene all the more beautiful. Everything was alive! She felt dizzy, but she never felt so happy and alive... and never so lonely.

"Beautiful isn't it, Twilight Sparkle?"

She heard Discord's voice above her and fell from surprise, letting out a small cry.

"Isn't it fascinating that the painter didn't really like this scene so much? It's an imaginary image made up of different places from all over Ponyville. Strange that everypony in Conterlot should know her by this one picture. She didn't even sell this picture--somepony just happened to take it to Canterlot and show it in a gallery--of course, no pony really knows of her there. She has only yet sold one painting, I believe; one with a red vineyard in it--and that was only for a small hoof-full of bits! She's completely poor! Living off Derpy Hooves and Golden Harvest, if memory serves.... Doesn't that just make you want to cry?" The entire time he talked he sat relaxing on top of the giant cypress, playing with the very tip-top as though it were his own tail.

"I don't care what you have to say, Discord! I'm here to put a stop to you!" Twilight firmly stood her ground, expecting the same old Discord tricks.

"Oh," Discord mockingly made a scared face that fell into a sinister one, "But you might want to listen at least in part to what I have to say," now more dignified; "for what I have to say is very important."

"If it were very important, then why would you tell me?"

"Because what fun is it if all the odds are in my favor?" He sighed heavily. "I have to at least give you a chance to make it interesting. Now hear me out--" Twilight felt a claw pull something out of her saddle-bag. Discord was laying on a bush next to her with the 'Dreaming Spells' book. He flipped through the pages with a smirk. "If you want to stop me you'll have to find the Elements of Harmony I've hidden in Cherry Garden's dreams. So, in a way, the game is the same as before--only I don't have to go out of my way again to wreak chaos. It is already chaos here--this is the mind-capital of chaos!" He chuckled to himself. With a mocking tone of pity, "Poor Cherry Garden, such a tormented thing..."

Twilight shot a magical blast at him from her horn, but next thing she knew she felt Discord's arm wrap around her and his claw and paw lift her into the air. The scene had changed.

"Look, Twilight Sparkle. This image is called 'The Starry Night over the Ride River,' painted by Cherry Garden about two years ago in some southern town by the sea. It's far less ambitious than the 'Starry Night' you just saw, but she was very happy with it. She worked on it all night, candles in her sraw hat, en-plein-air (that's fancy-talk for 'in the open air,' Twilight Sparkle). Perhaps it struck a personal cord?"

Below them was the bank of the river, moss-green and dotted with blue strokes, with ghostly figures of Cherry Garden and some ambiguously colored stallion, walking along the bank, tails intertwined. Behind the two lovers was the calm expanse of the river, deep indigo and blue, extending into the horizon, reflecting the gas-lamp lights of the town that curved from the bank, back and along the horizon. The sky was tranquil: a blue-green expanse with lighter colors near the city and darkening in tone, almost to a black, as it drifted high above, stained with greenish-gold stars that were few but cheery.

"'The town is blue and violet, the gas light is yellow, and its cast reflections range from russet-gold down to greenish-bronze. The constellation of the Great Bear sparkles green and pink against the expanse of blue-green sky,' so does Cherry garden express it in a letter to a friend of hers who seems to know not her feelings of love for him. It's pathetic--pitiable, really. She really is so alone."

He dropped Twilight. Where was she now? She quickly looked around at the small room lit only with a single small candle. She saw bars on one window (a window too big for a jail).

"Now, before it slips my mind," Discord mockingly began, pulling the 'Dreaming Spells' book literally from thin air, "Here is your hint:

Twists and turns in an Olive Grove is my master plan,
Neither lofty intelligence nor imagination nor both together
Can help you find what you seek where you began,
The Soul of Harmony is love, love, Love.

That's all I'll say for now." He tossed the book at Twilight and chuckled when she glared at him when it hit her head. "But don't worry, I'll be seeing you every now and again to check on how you're faring... or not. Good luck, Twilight Sparkle!" And with a snap of his fingers, he disappeared.

Twilight picked up the book and shoved it back in her saddle-bag. She trotted toward the window and stuck her face close to the glass. She could see an enclosed wheat field with haystacks, flooded in ghostly moonlight. Over the wall to the left were the tops of rows of olive trees.

"He probably wants to get me into a labyrinth again so he can trick me and waste my time," she thought, hoof to her mouth. "But then again, maybe he knew I would think just that and told me so I wouldn't look there. Hmmm..." She struggled a few moments, deciding. She watched the moonlight gallop across the hills beyond the far wall of the wheat field. She hit her head a few times, confounded. At last, she decided: "I have no other leads, and I have no idea where I am in Cherry Garden's dreams--the olive grove is as good a place to start as any."

Cypresses

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The room was small and quaint with bronze-colored plastered walls, flowered curtains on the window, and an old worn-to-ruin bed in a corner. Twilight looked for the door and cautiously opened it, looking out into the long, dark hallway. The coast clear, she made a light with her horn and walked slowly down the hall, trying her best to head in a direction she felt would lead her towards the olive grove. The hall branched off several times. Where the halls intersected were four supporting white arches over each direction that hung over her head threateningly.

She heard echoing hoofsteps and whispers. A shadowy pony crossed someway down the hall. She cowered, lowering her head and raising her shoulders. More whispers and rapid hoofsteps behind her. A shadowy pony ran from one room into the room she had just left, slamming the door with a hollow sound. And then blood-curdling screams and loud crashes came from the room:

"Pieta, Pieta!"

Twilight sprinted down the halls; she ran down the first hall that reflected moonlight on its polished floor. There was an exit! She bucked open the double doors and fell out into a garden. She looked back at the doors: they were closed and no pony was there. Still shaking in fright, she tried to calm herself down and took a few deep breaths.

It was serenely quiet. The sun was rising.

"What was that? The shadow—the screams!" As was her wont in any troubling situation she turned to books. She opened the 'Dreaming Spells' book, looking for any mention of something that might explain what had happened.

"Ah-hah! Here it is: 'When in another pony's dreams it is not uncommon for memories of that pony to manifest in their dreams..' Wow, so I guess Discord wasn't lying when he said Cherry Garden was a troubled pony... I better watch out for anything like that happening again." She shuddered at the thought, returning the book.

Coming back to the matter at hoof, "Where am I?"

The sulfur yellow sky cut open with cyan clouds seemed to give the impression that the pine trees which lightly populated the garden were suffering. One particular tall and majestic pine, which stood before Twilight, had its main trunk cut off. The needles of the pines were passionate strokes which took the burdens of the sky and earth subtly in their green colors; the lines swirled and rose like fire. Their trunks, blood-sienna lined with black, green, and pink, shadowed pale blue and bottle green, flowed falling to the ground. A lone pink cloud hung above her, slowly twisting in on itself.

There were two olive colored stone benches midst the trees; she sat on the one closest to her and repeated to herself Discord's hint, gazing at the two storied building that appeared almost golden in the morning sunlight. Her gazed turned upon and followed the brick wall that extended from one end of the building and around the garden. It struck her how much the wall seemed a part of the undulating landscape.

Everything, still flowing and alive, was now beginning to make her feel uneasy and anxious.

Returning her gaze to the building, which stood like a living thing: "Judging by how big it is and the number of rooms it seems to have—and the halls and high brick walls," she mused, "this must be some kind of an asylum!" She looked around her again, noticing the cerulean hills and mountains. "Discord had said that the first place was a scene made up of different places around Ponyville, and the second was of somewhere in southern Equestria. Could this also be a real place?" Still with Discord's hint echoing in her head, she couldn't get past the first line. "But then in his hint, why mention an olive grove?" Frustrated, she jumped up to walk around and see if she could find the olive grove she had seen earlier. Judging by the flow of the land and where the sun was rising, the olive trees seemed to be somewhere on the other side the asylum.

"But before I can use the Elements of Harmony, I first must find my friends... wherever they are.If they are even here." A pang of loneliness rose inside of her. She stayed it with a heavy sigh and a rough shake of her head. "I'll find them. I mustn't lose hope! Certainly, they're bound to be in the olive grove." However naively she tried to convince herself, she couldn't shake the feeling of isolation and a singular want to find a reason not to enter a possible labyrinth, yet she looked for the olive grove.

As she walked along side the asylum, on the gravel path made of short, bright, shimmering strokes of white, gray, violet, and yellow, the path turned to dirt lined with a flat green, edged with sharp black strokes. Over the path and apparent grass loomed a great roaring bush of pink flowers on bright yellow-green leaves, shadowed underneath a near black, the whole like a fierce frozen wave.

Continuing past this, some way down the wall of the building, it ended and the brick wall with sky-blue mortar began. Certain of her destination being somewhere beyond it, she did her best to perform a levitating spell on herself, and floated over it. She dropped in to the field she had seen earlier alive with moonlight from the room window. Gone were the haystacks, replaced by a calm undulating sea of young green and yellowish wheat, speckled near her hoof with small pink and white flowers. The sun was somewhere high in the sky, and a massive white cloud with an ultramarine bottom embraced the sky over the lush green hills and bright rich blue mountains beyond the wall opposite the asylum. The before anxious Twilight now instantly soothed upon gazing at this scene. She walked into the field. She could nearly feel the flowing strokes glide over her hooves.

"I really wonder where this place is." The thought quickly sifted by before she aspied the tops of the olive grove over the far wall.

"There it is!"

Almost as soon as she exclaimed, the scene flashed to a muddy image of what it was, and then entirely changed into a gray, rainy one. The field was now silver, green and blue; the mountains were steely; and the sky overcast with a magnificent cold-gray cloud. The rain, like needles, fell fast all over the landscape. She galloped as quickly as she could to the wall. As she was about to perform the levitating spell the scene changed once more. It become oppressively hot. The landscape was bathed in thick golden strokes. The sky was an intense yellow and the sulfur yellow sun shone over the violet hills and mountains. A reaper pony stood in the middle of the yellow field, reaping the swirling wheat. The reaper stood a dark phantom in that high yellow. Frightened, she clamored over the wall. The reaper could be heard laughing sinisterly.

The weather and time again changed. The olive grove was under a misty sky. The ground was alive with long strokes of orange and violet hues; the olive tree trunks were a silvery gray-green lined with blood-maroon; and the leaves were an infinite variety of silvery gray-greens, golds, and pinks, almost dotted. Far from the isolation of a labyrinth, it gave a sense of secure, warm-hearted company.

If she turned her head this way and that she could see further down the uneven rows of trees. Past a small clearing with a bare sawed-down trunk of an olive tree, she looked up and saw great silvery-violet mountains beyond the grove, now under a white sun in a golden sky; the olive tree trunks now auburn, their leaves pale and silver green, with shadows trailing after them like fast flowing water.

She now made her way through the grove toward the mountains. She knew not what drew her in that direction, save it felt, somehow, friendly and familiar--it felt all so queer. Her senses were overwhelmed with so much motion.

Suddenly she could feel the plowed orange earth seem to speed up. The trunks of the trees became blue and warped; the silver leaves turned green against a blue sky, rising like an inferno. She could feel something old and secret about it in its too beautiful life that she could not explain.

The air cooled as she wandered, lost in the grove's swirling trees. The whole sky was colored pink and bright orange, which gave an exquisite value and coloring in infinite variety to the silvery gray-green of the trees. And in the midst of that there was somepony, who also appeared pink, gathering olives. She cantered up to the pony, glad at the prospect for company.

"Hi there!" She waved cordially.

The pony turned around. It was Cherry Garden! She wore a yellow straw hat and held a big hoof-full of olives, and even had three of four in her mouth. She smiled kindly when she saw Twilight. She ate the olives in her mouth before speaking with a friendly smile.

"Howdy! I'm Cherry Garden! What's your name?"

"Um... my name is Twilight Sparkle..."

What was Cherry Garden doing here? Wasn't she asleep back at her house? Then again: this was Cherry Garden's dream and she could, actually, be wherever she pleased--still, it was a bit unsettling to see her here of all places. Cherry Garden looked a bit worried herself.

"I don't normally have ponies follow me out here like this to watch me paint--especially ones I've never met before. Are you staying at Saint Rat Hair Asylum too?"

Saint Rat Hair Asylum?

"If you're curious how my current painting is coming along, I'll have to disappoint you: I haven't yet begun. See?" She motioned to a large blank canvas on a weighted easel next to a painter's box near to herself. "The sun is just about to begin to set, so I must start working--I'm afraid I won't be able to catch the colors of the orchard fast enough, but we shall see--even if I have must come back several twilights in a row!" She trotted up to her easel, dropped the olives on the ground, and began readying her paints.

Twilight wanted to be frank and breach a question concerning Cherry Garden's dreams and Discord, but instead merely sheepishly accosted Cherry Garden, wishing to watch her paint. When she saw that Twilight was going to watch her work, Cherry Garden nervously smiled and asked Twilight by name to stand at a certain distance behind her. It was close enough to still be able to see the brush strokes, so she told Twilight.

Satisfied with that, Cherry Garden silently gazed at what she was to paint for a few long moments. With special horse-shoes she held a pallet in one hoof, already full of an assortment of colors, and in the other a small cup of brushes of varying sizes and shapes. She picked up a brush by the bristles with her mouth, flipped it around with her tongue with expertly practiced skill, scooped up a frightfully thick amount of paint in it, and set to work attacking the canvas at a feverish pace. Twilight had seen many artists paint in Canterlot, modern and classic, but never had she ever seen an artist paint like Cherry Garden! She seemed in a meditative state as she painted--focused but completely aware of all surrounding her. She tirelessly worked her lips and tongue, and turned her head in strange directions, to get the right angle for a desired attack of the brush. Every now and again, in thought, she would turn her brush so the bristles were in her mouth, still loaded with paint, and seem to suck on it. She also did a similar motion when she wanted a fine point on a brush. Some moments Cherry Garden would mumble inaudibly to herself when she switched brushes, cleaned brushes, loaded brushes with paint, mixed paint, or when she leaned far over to eat an olive or two off the ground. At times, Twilight thought, Cherry Garden seemed to physically look like the trees she captured with paint. Twilight had never seen a pony more alive and peaceful as Cherry Garden when she painted. She put life into her work. She seemed to paint simply, humbly, true, and lovingly; feeling a connection to what she worked at. It was sublime watching her work with the colors of Nature.

Suddenly she stopped and began packing her things. She had only laid down a few things: it was so simple.

It was growing darker. She turned to Twilight and said breathlessly, with a musical intonation, "I was almost done. An hour or two more and I could have done it all in one go. An hour wasn't enough. Ah! but I can't wait to return tomorrow!" Was it really an hour that she had been watching her? It felt only a few minutes!

Cherry Garden backed her things and began to walk past Twilight. "Come, walk with me. I enjoy company, though I may not be the best at keeping it."

With a tender touch from Cherry Garden's hoof on her cheek, Twilight came back to herself.

"What am I doing? Cherry Garden, listen to me!" She rushed up to Cherry Garden, grabbing her and nearly lifting her up right. "Discord--he's here in your dreams! He's trying to break free through you! You have to tell me what you know about what he's been doing--you have to tell me what you meant when you said that both Discord and Luna wanted me to help you!" She spoke frantically, shaking Cherry Garden violently.

Cherry Garden tried to break free, more than a little frightened. "I--I don't know what your talking about--"

"This is a dream, Cherry Garden. Please, try to remember before you fell asleep."

"You're a crazy filly! This isn't a dream!"

"Just look around you! Don't you find it weird that everything looks like your paintings?"

Cherry Garden looked around seriously, stunned. Twilight wondered how she could not have noticed while painting.

Cherry Garden screamed and jumped out of Twilight's grasp. "Oh no, how did I not notice? I have to wake up," hitting herself, "wake up, wake up--!"

"No!" Twilight seized her hooves. "No, you can't yet! That's why I'm here: I'm here to stop the nightmares."

Cherry Garden struggled, trying to hit Twilight, but Twilight held her fast.

"Please, Cherry Garden, I beg of you--please. I'm here to help you; but I need to know what you know first."

She seemed to see the honesty and friendship in Twilight's eyes, and began to calm, crying. Twilight stroked her mane soothingly.

"Now, now. Everything will be fine."

The scene had changed to a small room with cyan painted walls and a dirty-red tiled floor. Some painted portraits hung on the walls; some hung crooked. The one small window was cracked open, letting in faint gold-green rays of morning sun. Under the window was a small table with some books and coffee; beside it, on the right of the window, was a bed made of yellow wood, just big enough for one, with a deep crimson blanket on a green mattress. There were two yellow chairs in the room.

Twilight found herself sitting on one chair beside the bed, and Cherry Garden falling from her hooves on to the bed and laying down. Twilight glanced out the window and saw a group of ponies, mostly foals, glaring up at her. She quickly turned her gaze back to Cherry Garden, who appeared almost sickly. Her straw hat was off and hung on a rack above her. She breathed heavily and irregularly, still recomposing herself. She closed her eyes tight as though in pain. With her mouth, Twilight gently moved Cherry Garden's mane from her face. A subtly strong sent of cypress lingered on her after she pulled away.

"T--Twi--Twilight..." Eyes half open, Cherry Garden gazed up at Twilight with a hidden longing; her gaze fell to the saddle-bag. She was calmed, but an anxiety still lingered.

Twilight helped her to sit up. "Come on, I know you're worried--I am too--but we have to keep calm and work together..."

Cherry Garden attempted a smile and nodded. She breathed deeply; then, without being asked, said solemnly, "I know Luna isn't here to help us; and this is why: being no longer connected to the Elements, she said, she could only be a hindrance to you."

"How--"

"She didn't say... But I'm sure it has something to do with what Discord is planing. He's been delving deeper into my dreams and my heart, trying to corrupt me into an 'agent of chaos'... He's working at my loneliness...." Her voice trailed off, and she gazed distantly out the window.

Twilight pondered on what was said for a few moments, when Cherry Garden suddenly jumped on top of her, knocking her to the ground. From atop Twilight, she leaned closer, thrusting out her mouth as though she were going to kiss her, and pulled out the 'Dreaming Spells' book from the saddle-bag.

"This is his book!" She shouted, book in mouth, almost angrily but with concern. "You have to get rid of it! He and Night Mare Moon--!"

Twilight couldn't move or scream, frozen in fear: Cherry Garden's face turned seamlessly into Discord's!

"Now, now, dearest Cherry Garden, you can't just go ruining all the fun like that..."

The book fell and neatly bounced back into the saddle-bag.

Discord's face appeared to expand and to melt, encompassing the walls of the room. Cherry Garden's limp and headless body weighed heavily on Twilight, who frantically struggled to get away. A firm paw stopped her struggling and turned her head to face a floating head of Discord's. He smiled boldly and mockingly.

"How are you finding this world, Twilight Sparkle? Enjoyable?" Now giving her cheek a playful pinch; and continued, without giving her a chance to respond, with an undertone of maliciousness, but not without a jocular bounce, "I, personally, find it all absolutely delightful! Everything is in constant motion--not unlike that music of Mozclop's." He winked.

Twilight cringed at that composer's self-proclaimed nick-name.

With ostentatious gestures, "It flows, and flows, and flows still more--in different ways, all in perfect harmony--'painting music'--and yet, every stroke is ripe with delicious chaos! I never could have imagined the kind of chaos that could be had in so many brush strokes: it's a gentle tearing apart of space, with infinite possibilities!" Now composing himself, and adding with particular emphasis by a singular gesture, "Oh, but here is the best..."

The room returned to its former image and Cherry Garden's body vanished. Discord sat comfortably, in all confidence, on the bed.

"The best chaos cannot be seen, only felt..." There was a mark of triumph in his voice. "I have found, with sweet Cherry Garden's help, of course, that loneliness is a far more powerful and penetrating force of chaos than anything else." With a sinister smirk, "Would you like to see?" He languidly opened the window wide.

Twilight was outside, looking up at the window a story above her. In that yellow building's window stood Discord, gazing back very pleased. He pointed to something behind her. It was the same crowd of angry ponies she had seen glaring up at her earlier.

"I had initially come to warn you that the game is coming to an end. If you don't find the Elements of Harmony soon, the game will be over... and I win." Discord's voice whispered in Twilight's ears with a sinister giggle.

A sodom apple flew through the air and crashed into her face, spreading it's drit all over.

"Get out of out town, Cherry Garden--we don't want you!" The crowd jeered at her.

Instinctively shielding her face with a hoof and stepping back against the wall, she slowly slid to her left along the building.

"What? I am not Cherry Garden!" She narrowly dogged a rock aimed at her head. "Why are you doing this?!" She shouted, exasperated and confounded.

"You are a public nuisance and a mad drunk!"

"Don't dare you play at innocence, you eccentric monster!"

"You terrified my big brudder with you insane gift a week ago, and he hasn't slept well since, tormented--"

"You abuse my hospitality, and haven't payed your rent in two months--I want your things out of my place!"

"Freak!"

"Always alone, if not painting bad pictures, reading incessantly or--"

"Your own roommate didn't want to stay with you--"

"You're insane!"

"We don't want you in our town--GET OUT!"

They hurled a continuous wave of insults and jeers, apples, rocks, shoes, sticks, and animal droppings at her. She galloped full-force down the yellow-cobbled street for a train on a bridge that ran over the street, which was just departing. The crowd pursued her all the way to the stairs, where they stood throwing things at her. A large stick hit her and she tripped and nearly tumbled back down the stairs, but caught herself just in time. When she reached the top, the caboose was just passing by. She jumped on, bucked open its door, rushed inside, and slumped down, safe from the mob.

She could not make out any features in the dark, lonely room. She was overcome in a mix of feelings of bemusement, fear, anger, and loneliness. Confused and afraid at what those ponies did to her (to Cherry Garden), angry at Discord for taking advantage of Cherry Garden, and lonely from an overwhelming sense of isolation... She didn't have her friends this time to stand by her. That magic wasn't here; and the crowd attacking her only confirmed the fact.

She stomped the ground, emboldening herself, though but with hot and bitter tears rising, and stood up fiercely. She wasn't going to let Discord win!

"Oh, how cuuuute..."

Twilight shrunk back, but quickly recovered, readying herself for what she might face, and made a magical light with her horn. It illuminated a decrepit profile of Night Mare Moon! It had a sort of flatness to it that gave the impression it was a picture.

"We've missed you, Twilight Sparkle..." Night Mare Moon's voice whispered in her ears.

Twilight swallowed fear and reacted, shooting out several magical bolts in all directions. When they appeared to hit nothing, she spoke up defiantly.

"W-What are you doing here, Night Mare Moon? I thought my friends and I defeated your spirit."

"Ahhm, such an... expected question..." Night Mare Moon's voice seemed blended with Discord's.

The ground unperceptively shook.

In the same blended voice, she continued, nonchalantly, "But, if only to by time, We suppose it deserves an answering..." A long, thin, sharp, white-toothy smile grew in the darkness. "As long as ponies fear... We shall exist in some form..." Daggers in her smile. "When you defeated Discord, We had just happened to slip by and aid him..."

"What?" Twilight became worried.

The smile vanished. "But, now enough," Discord's voice completely took over. "We really can't stop our little game--not so close to its finale!"

There was an audible snap, and the room lit up to reveal that Twilight was in her own house. Discord floated just above where Cherry Garden lay, where Twilight had left her long ago, a large dilapidated painting of Night Mare Moon hiding most of his body. He leaned on it so Twilight could see only his tail dangling underneath it and his genial-misanthropic smiling face resting on his crossed arms on the top of the painting.

"Here we are," he spoke condescendingly, "just where the Elements were before. Do you think they are here?" He chuckled. "Really, Twilight Sparkle, I rather think I've made this far too easy for you, don't you? You should really be more on top of things. Isn't you talent supposed to be magic and knowledge?--and you represent the Element of Magic to boot! You don't rightly deserve that cutie mark if you can't well play a simple game as this."

Twilight didn't pay any attention to what he said, and instead ran to the Library downstairs and began tearing apart the bookshelves, searching for 'The Elements of Harmony' book. Discord watched her, amused, in the same position behind the painting in a corner of the room. His doppelganger nonchalantly pulled a book from a high shelf she had yet to search. He dropped it on the floor, looked away into the distance, and sidelongly kicked in Twilight's direction.

"Here it is!" She exclaimed with all the pride as though she had found it with her own efforts.

"Oh no, you have found the book which most certainly contains the Elements of Harmony!" The real Discord sighed in feigned defeat as his doppelganger mimed caricatured motions of defeat and despair. "What ever will I do? All you need now to do is find your friends and stop me! Oh, boo hoo! I am surely to be defeated!"

Twilight had already opened the book, saw it did contain the Elements, took them out and put them in the saddle bag. Discord was still mocking her with pretended defeat, when she pulled out the 'Dreaming Spells' book and shot it him with her magic, full force. She thought it had hit him and he disappeared, but she didn't look: when it should have hit him, she had already rushed out the front door in search of her friends.

Wheat Field Under Discord's Skies

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Strange she found herself in a garden. No--it wasn't strange; what was strange was the way the garden was. The scene wasn't anything like the way the others were done. Instead of harmonious motion, everything seemed to be... falling apart. Strokes ran into, on, over, and through each other in a patchy, near chaotic way; organized just enough to hold the image. It all appeared, in stark contrast to the powerful, vital images before, very fragile.

The garden was filled with many flowering pale-green plants--roses, chrysanthemums, poppies, small chestnut trees--their trunks and branches sky-blue. On a white stone stand were a few colorful pots with plants; one plant, in a particularly tall blue pot, had red flowers. There was a strange ivy on the ground in varying greens, but not too many, and black, shadowed with some strokes of light blues. At her right appeared to be some small, bare orange bush. The bushes further away, near the edge of the garden, twisted and crashed, bringing to her mind the tumultuous clouds of some terrible storm. There was a small railed path in the garden around which orange heart-shaped flowers appeared and rose without really rising. This corner of the garden lay in the wake of two grand pairs of dark, thick, towering cypresses that flowed into the sky, pale and clouded with violet clouds. Beyond the garden she could see the red and blue roofs of a lonely crowd of homes. And, further in the distance, she could see her house!

"No, Cherry Garden. I've already posed for you once; for what reason could you possibly need me again? I won't pose for you again no matter how many times you ask. I just can't."

Twilight heard a soft, but severe voice behind her. She turned around to see, not her own home, but a small cottage. Fluttershy's cottage!

"Fluttershy! Is that you? Where are you?"

Behind her again the same words were repeated, again in the same suppressed severity. She sharply spun about, glad to hear a familiar voice. And there she was: in the midst of the garden, among those orange flowers, picking some white roses; she held an air of impatience about her.

Twilight, so happy to see a familiar face, and elated at finding one of her friends so soon, ran towards Fluttershy with the intention of hugging her. To her surprise. however, Fluttershy jumped back, making a motion as though wishing to run away, and threw a look of complete disdain. Twilight stopped in her tracks some distance back.

"Fluttersh--"

"I think Angel is calling me, Cherry Garden." She tried to move behind some bushes. "Um... No! Cherry Garden. I can't--I won't pose for you again! You frighten me and, what's more, you even frighten Rainbow Dash!" Tears came to her eyes.

"Fluttershy, it's me: Twilight Sparkle!" She assured her. "Why do you keep calling me Cherry Garden? And what do you have against her, anyway?"

As Twilight attempted to move closer, Fluttershy slowly, but attempting to show some sort of boldness, standing taller, backed away further and further. "Well, really, Cherry Garden. I have nothing against you--" She froze up, her face contorted in the self-same look that Applejack falls into when she is lying. "I..I.." a little more nervous; she shot a look of malice!

"Fluttershy..." Twilight whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. Why would her kindest friend, the kindest and most gentle pony she knew, look at her like that?

"Just go! Go, before I say something terrible."

"But... Discord--!"

"You're just a bad dream!" Fluttershy shouted angerly.

Twilight couldn't stand it any longer. She needed to bring together her friends in this dream one way or the other so she could defeat Discord. She galloped head long straight for Fluttershy. The same memory spell should do the trick!

"Eeeek! What are you--?!"

Fluttershy tried to scurry away, but it was no use. Before she could even dig her hooves into the ground and dart, Twilight was on her, pressing her forehead--no horn!

Twilight looked up at her new pale lime-green mane. No horn. No magic!

"No! No, how is this possible? Even here, I should still be able to use my magic. Even if Discord changed my form, that shouldn't change me!"

Fluttershy, very shaken up from the sudden attack, squirmed to get away, tears in her eyes. But before Fluttershy could get anywhere, Twilight was pulling Fluttershy's Element of Harmony from the saddle-bag. This was the only other thing she could think of that could possibly help. Almost as soon as the glitter shone from out the bag, Fluttershy stopped her struggling and became mad.

"Cherry Garden!" She gasped.

Twilight thrust the Element on her before she was promptly bucked off and Fluttershy flew away. The Element sat her feet where Fluttershy had dropped it.

"I don't understand," she said, picking up and putting the Element back into the saddle-bag with her hoof. "That should've worked."

"Cherry Garden!"

Twilight looked up, and there in the cloudy sky, cerulean blue strokes of the sky seeming to fall on top, was Rainbow Dash.

"Cherry Garden! What have you done to Fluttershy this time?" Rainbow seemed a bit anxious, but put on a bravado as if to stave the feeling. "She just flew past me crying and said you attacked her! I swear--I've been kind to you for your own sake so far--but this has gone too far!" She shot down like a bullet, stopping just in time to press her face aggressively close to Twilight's. "One more slip," she struck Twilight hard in the chest with her hoof at every word, "and I can't be responsible for what happens to you. Got that?" Her voice quivered as though afraid, but her tone was sharp and threatening. Rainbow Dash spun around and slapped Twilight with her tail before flying off in the direction Fluttershy had flown, muttering, "Nopony makes Fluttershy cry and gets away with it..."

Twilight, without realizing, starting walking as she thought on what had just happened.

"What could Cherry Garden possibly have done to frighten not only Fluttershy--but Rainbow Dash?!"

She didn't have time to delve any deeper however, before she found herself in Ponyvillle on a little street that passed through some houses. The sky struck her first: a ghastly white with cerulean-blue strokes laid over it--a broken mass of fallen blue. Turning her head this way and that, the blue strokes moved, fell, rose, appeared and disappeared on the white. It seemed a serene poison infecting the scene. At her feet, on either side of the path, patched strokes of grass, bursts of yellow set in several clusters against them--is that blood? The walls of the buildings were shaded a sickly off-white and green. They seemed to be falling apart. Green strokes appeared harshly contrasted against the orange roofs in front and to the left of her. The trees quivered in a breeze that wasn't there. Twilight felt distanced and alone.

Somepony walked down the stairs at the end of the turn in the small road and followed it. Twilight followed, wary of the strange mass of green on a building that moved as though it were an animal.

The street opened up onto a scene full of a strange new motion. Flat slabs of color--like stain-glass--but, unlike glass, moved almost as though the whole were a living thing, though all distinctly its own. With the smallest of strokes, powerful motion and life was expressed. And yet, everything felt so fragile; Twilight felt the whole thing would fall apart if there were too many ponies. That yellow staircase rolled in a torrent. The red tiled roofs of some buildings above those stairs stood strong and defiant under the deep indigo sky--a day scene under a night sky! She froze when a small number of ponies, a pair of white figures next to her, a pair of dark figures ahead of her, and one shadowy, melting figure of an old pony gliding down the stairs, came walking heavily and vanished like phantoms.

She had not noticed it before, but all the dream must have been supremely quiet. A bell rung, and a door by the stairs shut on a tail that looked awfully like Rarity's.

Twilight walked to the door, and peeped inside. A great feeling of anxiety began whelling itself up within her, climbing up the strings of her heart like a lost soul from beyond.... Rarity was looking at a picture on the wall with a look of great disgust. A door opened inside and Pinkie Pie came out into the room Rarity was in.

"Who is the pig that did that?" Rarity caricaturely--Twilight first thought--gagged, pointing to the painting as though it were contagious and would ruin her if she looked at it any longer.

"I believe Derpy said it's one of Cherry Garden's paintings."

"That ghastly new painter in town, of whom I have heard somewhat about from Fluttershy? I am so glad I've been able to successfully avoid her!"

Pinkie roughly took down the painting and threw it face down on a table. Rarity crept away from it as though it could infect her.

Pinkie stuck her tongue out. "I don't know why Derpy would put that up! It gives me the creeps." She shivered and turned away from the painting sharply. "I've met Cherry Garden on more than one occasion."

"Really? What do you know of her?"

"She's a dangerous fool! When I'd talk to her--if somepony came up and passed by, she'd turn her whole head and follow them, staring; if a bird flew by, instead of glancing, she'd raise her whole head to see the bird. It wasn't normal kinda staring, though--even for me! It gives her eyes a fixed... mechanical look." She shuddered. "I've tried to be her friend, like I do with all ponies, but with Cherry Garden--" she winced at the name; "it's impossible! She's like a scarecrow. I catch her incessantly muttering to herself after she talks with some pony: 'It's impossible, impossible!' If I happen to pass her while she paints, and she doesn't notice me, I catch her, after putting some of her little strokes on the canvas, leaning her head back to look up with half-closed eyes--she seems deranged when she paints. In moments of frustration, or if somepony disturbs her while she's painting, she can get quite violent! But the worst is not her strange behavior, violence, or creepy paintings, but that mutilated ear of hers! Like a gorilla's!"

"What?! Ewww! What happened to it?" Even under the clear uneasiness, she smiled, evidently finding this image she made of a pony with a gorilla ear very amusing.

"I heard she cut it off and gave it to somepony she liked..."

They both shuddered and burst out laughing at the thought of this crazy pony with half an ear. They made their way to the door Twilight was behind. She jumped behind a near bush. Rarity and Pinkie opened the door, still laughing at the ghostie, and disappeared.

"Cherry Garden cut--cut off her ear?" Shakily, she reached up to feel her left ear still whole. Trembling, she felt her right. Her heart sank: most of the ear was gone! A piercing nauseous feeling overcame her. She stood up, holding the ear, and fell against the wall. What could possibly impel a pony to cut off half their own ear! Was Cherry Garden really as crazy as they made her out to be? The evidence was surely mounting up: Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and even Pinkie Pie (who Twilight had thought would be the most understanding)--all feared her and her... insanity. But Twilight hadn't seen anything that could make her seem crazy, herself. Cherry Garden only seemed no more than an eccentric painter--no pony dangerous. She thought back about when Cherry Garden first came to her door. Was her ear mutilated? Did she display any sort of undertone of possible violence? Any insanity? Grotesque paintings? She couldn't say much for the ear--it was too dark, and she never really looked. For the rest, Cherry Garden seemed to not show any significant sign.

"The painting! What were they looking at?" Out of some need to comfort herself that these accusations were false, she had to see it. She convinced herself if this painting was beautiful and full of life like she's seen up to now in her dreams, all that said against her must be lies crafted by Discord.

She peeped inside to make sure the coast was clear, and stumbled inside. The painting was twice as long as it was high. It felt heavy and still somewhat wet. She turned it over.

The painting wasn't moving like the rest of the world, but it still appeared it was tearing itself apart. Rows of violet pillar-trunks of poplars, like lightening, shot up from the stormy, flowery forest floor, disappearing into a black-indigo horizon like the edge of a dark sea. A dark figure, like the reaper from the yellow field, and another, a lighter figure that beared little resmbelnce to Cherry Garden, stood in that forest's interior. A vague anxiety came to her when the dark figure seemed to be moving and staring at her. She took one last, long look at the painting all at once, then turned it back down on the table.

This painting, for all its unsettling, fragile nature, expressed a pungent emotional intensity that was at once beautiful and frightening. It was almost sad. Thick strokes that she could actually feel in the weight and by gazing at it were layed down like bricks, heavy with raw emotion. The way Cherry Garden painted seemed more than a stylistic choice; there was a certain life in it that met her.

No! She knew Cherry Garden was not insane, as Discord would have her believe!

"It's impossible that somepony to paint like her could be crazy and dangerous!"

She was more determined than ever to gather her friends and stop Discord--save Cherry Garden from his torture.

She opened the door onto a muddy scene. Pinkie Pie and Rarity were frozen still in the middle of the road.

"Strange. Cherry Garden should've woken by now..." Discord's voice floated up behind her. Twilight spun around to meet Discord floating inside, holding that long painting, tracing the brush strokes with his eagle claw. "No matter..."

"I know what you're trying to do Discord! And it won't work!"

"Oh, do you?" He perked up, slightly raising an eyebrow.

"Yes! You've been trying to make Cherry Garden look insane so I won't want to help her. You've manipulated my friends' true selves in this dream so we can't stop you. But it won't work! If they are in this dream with me and the Elements, it must mean that either Princess Luna helped bring them here, or that they are projections of my memory of them--which means, in either case," her face lit up in sudden realization, in confidence of certain victory and having out-smarted Discord, "I can change them back by reminding myself of who they are! And even if I don't change back into myself, staying looking like Cherry Garden, by knowing who they are, we can still unite as friends and use the Elements of Harmony to defeat you!"

Discord stifled his mouth the entire of her little rant; but she was too much, and he burst out into a roaring fit of laughter!

"Is that what you think?" he hardly managed.

He fell on the ground, rolling in laughter, and fell into the painting.

"Why are you laughing?" Twilight demanded.

The painting floated up to face Twilight. Discord took on the body of that dark pony, and swung the other, lighter one, around as though in a dance. He pulled it close and stoked the mane.

"Don't you remember what I said?" taking off his head and replacing it on the other pony, letting the latter's fall into the flowery forest floor; "That I needn't go out of my way to make chaos here?"

That lighter pony's figure, head and all, transformed seamlessly into the exact image of Cherry Garden; the shadowy pony's headless body dropped into the flowers like a puppet whose strings have been suddenly cut.

Discord's voice slowly become overshadowed then mixed with Cherry Garden's warm, indeterminate voice. "Everything you have seen has been Cherry Garden's memories. Your friends really do despise and fear poor Cherry Garden. It's Beautiful: this chaos grows without any interference!" Twilight couldn't tell if Discord's voice overshadowed Cherry Garden's, or the other way around.

"Look at this, Twilight Sparkle." He leapt out from the painting, flying past Twilight, and winded behind Rarity and Pinkie. "Look at them closely." He turned their faces so Twilight could see.

Though Discord brought them closer to her, she felt she fell toward them.

"See how they look not like Cherry Garden's dream, but as they were in real life?" His hooves melted around their necks as he slipped next to Twilight. "That's because they are memories. I made none of it up!" He pinched Pinkie's and Rarity's little cheeks with fingers that grew out from his hoofs. "They fear her and create chaos for me to use! Your friends are the best, Twilight Sparkle--they easily believe lies disguised as truth..." He laughed sinisterly.

"But I can still get rid of that fear and unite them! It happened with Zecora and it can happen again."

"Oh, you would think that, wouldn't you? They feared Zecora because of what they didn't know; but they fear Cherry Garden because of what they think they know--and she re-enforces their fears every time they see her. Quiet different--"

"No!" Twilight knocked Discord away and he floated up in to the air. "I--"

"Enough!" cutting her off with a quick swipe, smearing some of the image of the dream. "I haven't time for this 'explaining to the reader' nonsense!" He swooped down over Twilight and knocked Pinkie and Rarity into the bushes along the road. "If you don't believe me--I think you still have a little time to see Applejack; surely Cherry Garden's most recent memory of her can convince you, eh?" And as though the scene were an actual painting, he tore open the canvas, and disappeared behind it before sewing it back together.

"What is he playing at? Again and again he shows up, explains a little bit of something, and then leaves. It makes no sense. Is he still trying to corrupt Cherry Garden? If he were, why bother with me? He doesn't need me here... if anything, I am the last pony he wants running around Cherry Garden's dreamscapes..."

She pondered over, turning in her head, this little riddle, trying to figure it out. She walked through the muddy scene of Ponyville toward Sweet Apple Acres, the streets empty and the scene eerie in its lack of motion, until she came near the edge of town when she stopped and looked back.

The colors, so bright and cheery, but the strokes and composition expressed something delicate falling apart.

Much of the canvas showed. The under painting, like a drawing, showed in places like bones revealed under flesh. Great places were left unfinished: sky, fields, roofs, walls, windows. Most looked merely suggested, as though crippled by despair before it could be finished: walls had noticible strokes like shrunken skin; heavily laid but gently lifted strokes of yellow fell almost too simply on flat green bushes; twisting plants and trees rose like a gentle fire invading the fragile held image and were fuller than anything else; the fields beyond seemed fading, their nearness or farness indeterminate; the broken dark blue hills gave the impression of a sky, but the sky was bare canvas.

A knot built in her chest that chocked her throat. Here was an image of internal decay; the image of a pony who has been suffering long. There were no ponies in the streets. There were no sounds of laughter or animals. There was just this. The silence roared.

As she walked on, some fillies laughed distantly, cutting the air. Twilight winced; the laughs were mocking. The sounds fell away like tears.

The longer she looked the the scene, the more she felt the touch of Cherry Garden in it; painted with hot and bitter tears; painted with a hoary sadness.

Upon a sudden the image brightened; the grasses dried at her feet and burned a high yellow. The once deep, full green bushes beside her blanched, outlined with quick green strokes; long yellow bricks of wheat rushed into them and disappeared. Looking around her, all the fields around Ponyville had became a bright, high yellow, all the brighter juxtaposed against the gray-blue sky and the depressed blue color Ponyville had become. Then the rain poured down in a tremendous deluge, like needles. Strokes of the ground contorted, as though in death-throws, transforming from yellow to a silvery-blue. The rain was warm.

She couldn't explain it, but she felt somehow fathomlessly isolated from that warm, happy town. Everywhere she went in that town, there were always ponies, happy ponies, with smiles on their faces and kindness on their tongues. To think that these same warm hearted and caring ponies--even her closest friends--could abuse a suffering soul, in need of help most of all, was unthinkable. It was painful. Her breathing became heavy and it became hard to walk. Just outside Sweet Apple Acres, she collapsed and allowed the tears to fall.

The rain lifted and Celestia's sun shone bright over head--oppressively hot!

Sheaves of wheat stood just off the road, behind a tiny fence. They seemed to stand like those ponies who, overworked in the hot sun, die standing. They stood too still, cut by the reaper, a vague dark pony she saw still cutting away in the distance, working like Discord himself in the blistering heat to finish the task. The image of death, with ponies as the wheat he is reaping. The sheaves seemed to wilt under the heat; almost brown yellow strokes, and violet strokes that flashed in the yellow of the wheat, flowed endlessly off and into a strange pool that became a shadow.

The dark reaper faced Twilight. Twilight was so lost in the bizarre lines now she didn't react, merely blinking.

"Go on, Twilight Sparkle. Applejack and the rest of your friends are just a little further. They are slandering Cherry Garden. They are speaking mean things, and are lying to themselves. Do you think you can stop them?" The reaper was Discord.

"My friends would never...."

"Cherry Garden!" Applejack shouted.

She somehow appeared in front of the Apple's barn. Inside stood, in a circle, her friends. When Applejack spoke up, they all turned towards Twilight.

"Cherry Garden." Applejack heavily trotted up to her. "What's this I hear about you attackin' Fluttershy?"

Twilight tensed. They weren't like the rest of the dream: they weren't painted. They were real.

"Is it true?" Twilight looked intensely into her friends' eyes, growing sick of Discord's games.

It's all a lie. It's all a lie. It's all a lie. A lie!

"Is what true?" She took a threatening step closer.

"Do you... hate Cher--me?"

"Listen! We've tried bein' nice to y'all, but you've done nothin' but scare us and terrorize us!"

Rainbow Dash zoomed over and saved Applejack the trouble of talking.

"She knows darn well what she's done! There's no need to suffer talking about it!"

"But what have I done?" Twilight pleaded.

"You'd best just get goin', girl."

"Yeah!" the rest of her friends agreed.

"But--please! Girls!"

"Ya see these legs? They tend to go off on their own sometimes..." Applejack turned her broad side to Twilight and flexed her hind legs.

What is this?

"Friends--!"

"Friends?! Get this in your head, Cherie Gardoin: we aren't your friends!" Rainbow Dash spat.

Twilight tripped over something and fell on to the ground. Pinkie Pie laughed at Cherry Garden's gorilla ear getting muddy. "That ear sure is scary, but just like I tell ya girls," she pointed out gaily, "nothing drives away fear like laughter. Now just look: that ear really does look like a gorilla's when it's all dirty!" She fell into a fit of giggles that her friends happily joined.

"Come now, deary, laugh. Share this moment with us," Rarity added ironically. "All that time alone really isn't good for you. You really aught to be more social and amiable."

Twilight got up and tried to walk closer. She had to convince them.

The ground imperceptively shook and her friends, for a moment, flashed like smeared paint.

"Don't come any closer!" Rainbow Dash threatened, stepping in front of a cowering Fluttershy who was mumbling something about not letting Cherry Garden hurt her.

Twilight stopped and reached for her saddle-bag.

"We're warnin' ya!"

She took it off and dropped it; the Elements fell out.

Suddenly she couldn't breathe; the ground rose up to meet her. She couldn't focus her eyes right. And then overwhelming, numbing pain infected her chest. She gasped for breath and shook violently. She could vaguely see her friends, for a moment flashing like smeared paint, walking away without looking back. She struggled to get up on her legs and limp out of the barn to somewhere safe.

Her body felt heavy and she fell painfully. The sky darkened. Overcome by deep melancholy, she fixed her gaze on the distant fields--to be away from all this torture, all these lies, all this... emptiness. She was alone, and it was more than she could bear. Everypony she had called friend had abandoned her and despised her. She heard screaming, muffled screaming as though from behind a wall. It tore through the air. It was messy. The pain in her chest--from her injury and from her heart--was suffocating. With great pains she drug herself toward the fields. She stopped and couldn't breathe for the pain. She violently hiccoughed. Hot tears ran down and muddied her face, mixing with the soil. Her breath was fast and shallow.

It began to thunder in the distance, and a black-blue cloud overspread half the sky.

The screams turned to moans. She drug herself into the almost too serene fields, fields that would appear calm even in the catastrophe. Winds blew across and beat in waves the great expanse of high-yellow wheat.

The clouds spread over the whole sky; lightning flashed vividly, showing a lead white cloud violently tearing across the troubled sky, and vast flat fields of green wheat expanding endlessly into the infinite horizon. No ponies, no houses, no animals, no sun, no moon, no stars, no open sky, no comforting features. Only complete solitude.

The fields seemed to express the sadness and extreme loneliness words could never. The screaming as though from behind a wall pealed. There was no echo. The screams drifted and faded quickly. The screams turned to wails and then to sobs. Her eyes burned terribly and a nauseous feeling heaved in her stomach. She tried to stand again. Her legs shook and she almost fell. Her head reeled. The screams built up into a crescendo. She fixed her gaze on a small haystack down in the fields.

There... there she could lay down in peace and wish for it all to end... to attempt to escape this agony.

She had been betrayed. Her friends--they beat her and laughed at her--at Cherry Garden! That most recent memory, if it was true...

No...

Twilight vividly remembered Cherry Garden's face when she came to her home... It wasn't just great sleeplessness she saw there, but suffering and loneliness. What pony cared for her? Who would miss her if she left? No, she wouldn't leave loudly, but just slip out... like a pony who wakes up early, while everypony else is asleep, and slips out the door without a sound. No one would notice. No pony would miss her. They'd wake up in the morning, eat and laugh, and be happy that that pony who only disturbed and troubled them was gone. They'd be relieved. That expression of complete sadness and helplessness had expressed itself in Cherry Garden's sleep-deprived face--deprived of all the kindness and comfort of friends.

Cherry Garden's face had been dirty. That day her friends had abused Cherry Garden just as they had abused her. The reality struck her to her heart.

Breathing became painful, like daggers in her chest. She limped in the direction of the haystack. She coughed and something red came out. Her whole body trembled. The pain in the mutilated ear suddenly tore through her with the pain and intense suffering of exposed nerves. She screamed in agony. The haystack thrust at her and held her. She gazed at the cloudy skies. There was a loud crash and her eyes closed.

What is this? It's impossible! Impossible! I wish they would only accept me as I am. I wish it were all over now...

Fearful laughter sounded overhead and spread pealing through the heavens.

A shock of panic that became mixed with a nauseous feeling of dread shot through her, like a pony who meant to commit suicide but then makes for the bank because she finds the water 'too cold.'

"My friends...."

Don't accuse anypony... it is I who wanted to kill myself.

I want to die like this...

Cherry Garden's voice cried from her mouth.

The screaming pealed and pealed and pealed again; she knew the screaming had not been from behind some wall or in the distance--she was screaming! She screamed in anguish. All the loneliness, all the agony, all the helpless isolation, all the abuse and rejection, all the extreme depression, flooded into her with a roar.

No friends, no family. Just her alone in nature.

Something sharp struck her head. She opened her eyes. She lay in the middle of a fork in a dirt path that cut through terrifyingly yellow wheat fields. She heard careful rustling in the fields. There were some green grasses that ran along the paths that gave the impression that very few ponies provide these fields company.

Impassioned strokes attacked the scene in tremendous intensity. Every stroke burned with emotion. This was the work of a possessed pony.... Lines ran into, on, over, through each other in volleys--complete wet-on-wet strokes of savagely thick paint. The dirt paths shot out like blind but precise attacks with incredible speed out to either side of her, dark grass and dark dirt painted in bold painful strokes, only to vanish into the troubled sea of wheat. The path before her, running into the fields, twisted and then shot out like a coiled band just before plunging unhesitatingly into the wheat fields. At the two corners where these violent paths met, stalks of wheat erupted and plummeted like lava from a volcano; some strokes mixed with the dirt to become a brighter brown. The fields lived.

If Twilight could see Cherry Garden there before her, she would see Cherry Garden painted on even though she could barely hold the brush, but knowing exactly what she wanted to paint, worked at the painting with all her strength, not even bothering to lay down an under-drawing.

The fields shook and bent. Twilight's sense of perspective vanished the longer she gazed. Thick, raw, heavy strokes of paint: it was as though Cherry Garden beat at it in despair. To her right were some smeared black strokes over which were some lighter lemon-yellow strokes--nightmarish teeth in a grand, grinning smile. Strokes flowed and crashed--lemon-yellow into brownish-light-cadmium; some black strokes; and floating over the fields, like a spirit of death, a brown like the path on which she stood.

The sky was dark but not stormy, though the sky thrashed about in constant motion. The horizon glowed in the sky like an eerie mist. The ultramarine blue, lead white, and ivory black sky flowed like a great roaring fire. No stroke repeated.

Again great waves of sadness and loss crashed down on her and pulled her down.

"All the happy times with my friends... all the kindness and love for each other; all we accomplished and conquered and learned together; all the laughter, all the tender moments; coming closer as friends; always there for each other; all the ponies we helped...." That that may all be lost in an instant--that it was all thrown away in an instant; that their friendship and happiness could just end....

She poked at the ground, driving in her despair. Her poking turned into strokes, and then into slashes, and then strikes. She kicked up so much dirt and made so much noise wailing, that a murder of crows that had been eating in the fields burst out of the field in a confusing myriad of caws and wings beating violently as though they were being attacked.

The crows fled off into the indeterminate horizon. For a moment the glow in the edge of the sky seemed to emanate only from two spots above the field. The roads, the field, and the two glowing spots like nightmarish eyes--it made a strangely smiling face, the kind a starving foal might make on its sinewy, bony face, sickly morose and rather pale, as it suffers the anguish of sickness and malnutrition, so far that it no longer has the strength to even cry for food or comfort from its mother, and can only contort its little mouth into a strange smile of suffering, and weakly move its little legs no thicker than worms.

She couldn't cry, only chocking and coughing pathetically, drooling in anguish.

Suddenly the scene imperceptibly shook violently. She lay in a vast plain of empty canvas.

"It's over!" Discord's voice, mixed with Night Mare Moon's and Cherry Garden's voices, boomed like thunder all around. "You lost, Twilight Sparkle!" His hysterical, sinister laughter sent Twilight's heart rumbling. It was all the more terrible that Cherry Garden's laughter predominated. "You couldn't get the Elements of Harmony to unite and defeat me--you played perfectly. And now, with you here, I can escape Cherry Garden's dreams with you when she wakes."

Yellow flashes spun in her vision.

Discord fell out of the blankness of the canvas, laughing and rolling around. "Twilight, I'm so glad we got to spend this time together," he wiped a tear from his eye; "I'm even more glad you were able to see your friends for who they really are, and how in what they think they know, so convinced of it, they would drive a poor suffering soul so far to contemplate killing herself." He flashed like smeared paint. "It's beautiful! The Chaos here is frightening!"

A sharp pain shot through her chest. Something wet and warm came from there... Was she bleeding?

"Look, look! Look at this! Look what Cherry Garden has taught me! Look at what I now can do!" And he drug his lion's paw along the canvas, leaving in its wake a myriad of colored strokes of paint. It rose and twisted higher and higher, strokes climbing up and up, and filling the canvas in nightmarish blacks and greens and yellows. A great cypress, like a dark obelisk, towered before her. The strokes flowed. In the strokes she could see ponies' faces, and then nightmarish faces like death.

Twilight's hooves shook and twitched; she couldn't stop them. The strokes, the faces, appeared more and more sharp and threatening.

"They're going to kill me!" She tried to scream, but only a hoarse breath came out. A terror overtook her, like a pony falling off a high cliff, knowing that they will die.

Discord continued to drag his paw, and now his eagle claw as well, across the canvas, dancing and laughing madly. He flashed again and again like smeared paint.

Was the dream breaking-up? Was Cherry Garden waking up?

The scene built up stroke by stroke in rapid succession.

A fire, a fire! That Cypress: a living nightmare! Voices wailed and screamed and cried out.

Nopony comes by to warm themselves... only passing by...

I wish they would only accept me as I am.

I want to die, but I cannot bring myself to kill myself.

The beams, holding up this house so it will not fall on me, they are like guillotines above my head--not unlike those ponies whom I've called my friends.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

I wish it would all end now.

I've been in such anguish and loneliness, I cannot cry.

It is I who wanted to kill myself.

Two very large and weighty cypresses, dark immortal obelisks, of a difficult bottle-green hue; in the foreground, and around her, is low growth, with brambles and brushwood, in thick layers of heavy paint of yellow, violet and green, which gave a sense of firmness. Violet hills, a green and pink sky and a moon, without radiance, the slender crescent barely emerging from the opaque shadows. The very tall, very straight, very somber cypresses blackened, shooting up their nightmarish silhouettes of flames.

"Look what I have achieved with that poor soul's help!" Discord slithered out the top of the shorter cypress, his voice still blended with Night Mare Moon's and Cherry Garden's voices, though Cherry Garden's overshadowed both. Again he flashed like smeared paint, and remained so before vanishing and appearing behind Twilight, his paw on her shoulder. "Oh, shh, shh, shh," he coxed soothingly, "Twilight Sparkle. Are you sad your friends betrayed you?" A malicious smile played on his lips, fighting against a fake frown of pity. "But, dear, it is only natural. Your friends, in their own hearts, are justified. Cherry Garden scared them. They have to protect themselves and their friends against any threat, no? That's all any pony wants: a nice, happy life with little suffering." And now that smile that had been struggling to shine, broke through the clouds and burned brilliantly. "And therein lies the chaos. Therein lies all the lonely anguish. Those fields of wheat you passed through just before," another face appeared from the back of his head as he spoke and spat a small spark which lit a few blades of dry wheat in the small field beside the cypresses; the fire was started and now he need only let the wind feed it; "Those fields were among Cherry Garden's most recent paintings. Her doctor told her 'put yourself into you work; only then do you seem calm and your attacks lessen.' So she did--began painting on larger double-square canvases to lose herself in--and only into these wheat fields could she entirely express her sorrow in paint." He paused for a moment to smile to himself. "I know," he brought his mouths next to Twilight's ears and whispered with special stress, "because I was with her."

Twilight, who until now had not really been listening, partly because she was still deep in the sorrow and horror and pain she felt and partly because she was lost in the scene's bizarre lines, suddenly bucked Discord, but her hooves only passed straight through him, leaving his smug looked unchanged.

"YOU MONSTER!" She shouted with horse voice and hot and bitter tears streaming from her red eyes. She stubbled stlightly from the pain growing in her chest. "YOU did this to her! YOU made my friends hate her! YOU put her through all that suffering! YOU tormented her with nightmares! YOU used her like a stepping-stone to try take Equestria! YOU filled her head and heart with lies!"

"I only did two--"

"NO!" She roared, almost falling over. "NO MORE LIES!" She bucked the taller cypress with all her might, sending strange shivers up and down its whole length. "With or with out my friends I'm going to defeat you!" She shook uncontrollably.

She caught Discord glance nervously at her back. She turned and saw she still had the saddle-bag on. She dug inside and drug out the first thing she laid her mouth on. It was that painting Cherry Garden had done of Discord. Why had she not looked at it before? Discord's portrait was missing from it. She could guess (and she was pretty sure she was right) why it was blank; however she didn't know how she could go trapping Discord in the blank painting without her friends wielding the Elements.

Discord shifted his gaze nervously and rung his hands as though washing them clean. Certainly something wasn't going as planned.

"Why is Cherry Garden not waking up?" He whispered harshly.

The fire--the fire that would wake Cherry Garden--still hadn't caught going yet in the fields, and that also set Discord on edge. His plans to escape with Twilight were going fine until now. He could hear Cherry Garden in the cypresses talking to Twilight.

The emotions that grip me in front of nature make me lose consciousness....

For all the suffering I've endured in this world, I want to leave something beautiful for it... as a thank you for giving me life...

The sympathy an artist feels for certain lines and for certain colors will cause her soul to reflect in them.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love others...

His face grew pale and he brought his legs and arms closer together, as though trying to hide behind a thin tree, with these last words Cherry Garden spoke. He struggled to retain an air of confidence in this cowering expression.

Twilight, who at first nearly bucked the cypress and screamed "lies" again when she at first heard Cherry Garden's voice, now became slowly more confident, and then, letting it fade, grow calm and slumped down hearing what Cherry Garden was telling her. Her tears of pain, anger, and sorrow slowly turned to tears of sorrowful happiness under Cherry Garden's soft voice:

"What am I in the eyes of most ponies—a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant pony—somepony who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then—even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nopony, has in her heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum."

Her vision blurred with tears, Twilight took in the landscape anew: everything was alive! Everything moved, not in chaos, but in harmony. Every small little brushstroke came together and made something beautiful: a big thing made from a series of small things uniting. Every stroke held in it an emotion, a life, straight from Cherry Garden's soul. She painted not for any style, nor fame, nor to divert ponies from their lives for a moment, but to share with them her heart, so full of love for everything; her "style" was no style at all, but really her raw emotion on the canvas that could infect a pony simply and directly with what was in her heart: a blazing fire and an open door for anypony who passes by in the cold to come in and warm themselves and leave with their own blazing fire to share and give to others. She felt Cherry Garden's love despite all her suffering in this. There was no barrier between her and her art, and her art and the ponies that gazed at it with an exposed heart.

"And there is no barrier between me and my friends. My love for them... though they maybe mean to you, we have the same soul within us all--even within all living things. Every little thing is connected. The Elements are within me--Love is within me!" Her eyes sparkled with sudden realization. "Discord is defeated by Love."

Slowly, she took out the Elements of Harmony one by one and put them on. It still hurt to look at these Elements and remember what had been done to her--to Cherry Garden--by their wielders. Though she realized the Love within her and the connection of life, she still couldn't understand what it meant, and it left a strange pit, almost of hopelessness, in her heart.

She couldn't think deeply about it now. Discord had to be sealed back into the painting and be rid from Cherry Garden.

Discord knew it was over, but he still had one last trick up his sleeve to draw this out until Cherry Garden woke.

As soon as Twilight began to float and glow with the power of the Elements, Discord threw doubt at her. Doubt about her friends and about Cherry Garden. Doubt about Equestria and the Princesses. Doubt in her ability. Doubt in this Love in everything. Doubt that ponies could all possibly live together completely peacefully. He showed her the worst in every pony, their suffering, and selfish, often very clever methods they use to keep their own idleness and contentment. This rushed into her from all sides.

Discord was afraid and wanted Twilight to be more afraid than he so he would not lose. He was afraid because he had never experienced kindness like Twilight had--never had friends... He was scared and wanted to rule Equestria because--whether he knew it or not--he was alone.

He did not succeed in stopping Twilight, but the seeds had been planted. In a radiant rainbow that poured from the Elements of Harmony, he melted back into the painting with a pitiable cry. Twilight swooned and fell asleep after a very long night.

Good-Bye For Today...

View Online

Spike had been running around anxious and worried since he had woken up in the middle of the night to Twilight screaming.

He sprinted, tripping over himself, down the stairs. He didn't realize he was shaking until he tried reading, under the candle light, the words on the strange book by Twilight's sleeping head. Holding himself as still as he could, a few words stood out to him:

"Dreaming spells.... imperative the ponies remain asleep until they wake on their own..."

Spike didn't know what was happening, nor who the strange pony was on the couch with her back to him, but he knew he had to help his closest friend in any way he could.

He stayed up with her the whole of the night, quickly pacing back and forth, and jumping in fright every time Twilight would cry out. It took a great amount of courage and strength for him to not wake her up and comfort her, assure her that whatever was happening to her was only a dream.

Just before the sun rose, there was a low rumble. Twilight suddenly began to shake all over. Spike felt her sweaty forehead and, knowing she had a fever, got her blankets and an ice pack. He sat there for a time, stroking her mane. When she began to cry and mumble something about being "all alone" and "no friends," he hugged her, feeling useless. When her screams started up again, he couldn't stop himself from crying, and with tremendous difficulty pulled himself away to prevent himself from trying to wake her.

He was going to go back up in their room, but, glancing back at Twi, who tossed and turned, he again noticed the strange pony on the couch. This pony: she had not moved nor made any noise the entire time: she was as still as death.

He sat at the window in their room, and quietly watched the first gentle rays of the sun play on the clear, crisp landscape. Golden-yellow lines shone along the violet streets and delineated the blue buildings. The sky looked almost green, and sublimely still: not a cloud in the sky. The trees were black masses that gave a sense of cozy hospitality. In the distance, along the base of the silvery mountains, a fog, like a blanket, appeared to be rolling in to Ponyville.

Hoping to get his mind off things, and assure himself that everything was going to be alright, he unlatched the lock on the window. The thought occurred to him that he ought to close all the windows and blinds so that Twilight could stay asleep as long as possible; so he latched the window, pulled the shades, and went all around the house and library closing all the shades and windows, and even putting a sign on outside of the front door that told ponies that the library was closed today and that no pony was home.

This exercise, along with telling himself that this was Twilight he was dealing with, and that she could handle anything, calmed him some.

He checked on Twilight. The ice pack had melted. He quickly made another in the kitchen and replaced it on her head. He gazed at her, and wondered ever more what was happening in the dream she was in. She screamed again, and clenched her teeth. Spike now took a deep breath and told himself, trying to mimic Twilight when she tries to comfort him, that she was alright, and he need only do whatever he could to help without interfering. After another deep breath, he nodded, and thought about what to do. He started fixedly at the strange pony while he thought.

Even as Twilight turned over, screamed, cried, and hit her hooves on the floor at his feet, this pony did nothing. As the sun faintly lit up the library in a low din, he noticed what might have been faint bruises on her back, and that half her right ear appeared to be cut off. The ear shocked him the most, and though he told himself it must only be a trick of the light, he couldn't gather the courage go and check.

To distract himself, and reasoning that Twilight might be waking up any minute, he leaped in to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast: the good-old-fashion comfort meal: eggs, pancakes, and orange juice (he thought of the simplest and warm-hearted meal he could think of making to best re-assure and distance himself of the depressing mood).

He was not sure, but he assumed that the strange pony would eat with them, by Twilight's own request, so he made three big helpings, and, why the hay not, he even decided to dice-up some of Twilight's favorite vegetables and mix them into omelets. He took his time, and tried to stretch the time as long as possible and lose himself in his work as much as possible, but even that only allowed it to be stretched to just over an hour.

With all three plates set around the table, he sat alone at his spot and poked at his food for a time, turning up furtively to check Twilight. She was still asleep and still tossed and still moaned. At least the screaming has stopped some, he sighed. He noticed the ice pack needed changing, and switched them out before returning to the table; and began to pick at his food and slowly take to the process of eating. With both seats empty, he pulled them closer and rested his feet on either one. The sun outside shone brighter, casting bright bars across the room through the cracks in the shutters.

As he put away his empty dish and started to wrap up the other two to put away, a sudden hush fell upon the whole house, and a breeze swept through that made Spike feel, for a moment, rather nauseous. He quickly finished stowing the dishes in the refrigerator, and went to see Twilight.

He rounded the corner of the kitchen to that strange pony turned over and staring at him with wide, piercing, mechanical eyes. His heart sank and he held his breath. He had never seen anypony with such a gaze; it was frightening. And he could now see clearly that ear he thought was cut off was indeed so: half the ear was missing, and its edges were rough and jagged, as though it were cut slowly and with much struggle; it no longer looked like a pony's ear. He stood in a cold sweat, too stunned to either move or speak, and that pony continued to chillingly stare on, neither blinking nor shifting her gaze; it gave her a possessed look.

Twilight suddenly stirred, and that pony averted her gaze to her. Tears came to the pony's eyes, and they turned back to Spike with a completely transformed tenderness that affected him to happy tears as much as her fierce stare had to fear. Twilight looked to him with warm tears in her eyes. Spike wasted no time jumping into his friend's embrace. He was so happy she was alright.

"I was so worried, Twi..." he sobbed. "I stayed up with you all night."

Spike stopped sobbing when he saw the strange pony watching him with too placid eyes.

"I'm alright, Spike," in a weak but relieved voice. "I'm so glad I'm back and to see you," Twilight giggled with a strange sort of sob. "What time is it anyway?"

That pony looked away, her eyes darting about the room.

"Nearly noon! I closed up all the curtains so the light wouldn't wake you!" He pointed eagerly behind him at a curtained window, happy that his prospect would be judged by his dear friend.

"That was very responsible of you, Spike!" approvingly; and she again welled up with tears and hugged him. "Thank you; I don't know what I would do without you."

"Well," Spike began, smiling and chuckling to himself in self-admiration, but was once again cut short by the pony staring at him. "Uhh, Twi..."

"Wait! How did you know I needed to stay--"

"Who's the new pony?" He cut her interrogative outburst off, tapping her shoulder.

Twilight's face brightened and she jumped into Cherry Garden's hooves. "Cherry Garden! We did it!"

Cherry Garden's face flashed nervously, though she tenderly returned the embrace.

"Yes," her voice faltered; "we did."

Spike noticed Cherry Garden smiled strangely. Her glance fell upon a corner of the room and did not look away even when Twilight let her go and began congratulating her with tender, kind words. Twilight's own manner, Spike thought, was awfully forced.

Spike stepped up next to Twilight and got a good look at this strange Cherry Garden. Spike interrupted her brief praising and flatly asked who this pony was that was "so brave; so strong; so clever; and worthy of so much love and friends and praise."

"Spike--oh, I'm sorry!" She took his claw and held it out for him to shake with Cherry Garden's hoof. "This is Cherry Garden, an incredibly talented painter; she helped me defeat Discord in her dreams." As she went on rambling and explaining to Spike all that had happened to her and Cherry up until now, as well as relating what she has learned about her in her dreams, every now and again, emphatically touching Cherry, looking to her to validate a certain point or two with some kind of nod of the head or significant look, Spike noticed strange peculiarities in her demeanor and countenance. Her face was rather sunken, but not unhealthy; her eyes, like ghostly lights, would alternate between gliding over everything in sight, moving unceasingly, and gazing fixedly at something or other. She fidgeted as though guilty of some unknown crime. When staring at something closely, her mouth, often tongue in cheek, would move oddly. Her expressions changed rapidly from one to the next: when Twi talked about the nightmares and Discord, and looked to Cherry, Cherry's face would sink into a horrified expression as though the thing were still before her; when Twi mentioned being happy for Cherry for helping her defeat Discord and showing her the love within her own heart, she brightened and smiled so warmly it almost broke Spike's heart.

Both Twilight and Spike, when either looked up at Cherry Garden's ear, would repress a cringe. The roughness and messiness of its jagged edge made it appear to transform into grotesque shapes in the light when she moved her head. And when she moved ear higher or lower, it would delay and twitch unnaturally.

Despite their victory, Twilight noted that Cherry Garden's face expressed permeating worry.

"Cherry Garden," Twilight leaned closer to her friend, fixing her wide eyes into Cherry Garden's swimming pools, with all her might refraining from glancing at the ear. "Cherry, what's the matter?"

A wave of impending tears rose and fell away just as quickly behind Cherry's eyes. She turned her face away, moved her hooves about nervously and fell still, staring off and away to where Twilight could not see. Suddenly she jumped up from the couch and paced back and forth, incoherently muttering and turning her gaze frantically from the floor to the ceiling and back. Twilight was about to speak when Cherry Garden cut her off maniacally.

"I feared that being a burden to you, you felt me rather a thing to be dreaded." Her head dropped; a gravity overcame her features, as though reproaching herself.

"What? Cherry, what do you mean?" was the confounded reply.

Cherry Garden appeared about to vomit. She stopped her compulsive pacing. She hunch her head forward and low, only to quickly reel it back and straighten back up and shake her head, shaking off thoughts.

Twilight exchanged nervous glances with Spike. When Cherry Garden let out a cry and stomped her hooves violently, Twilight read in Spike's face a desire to have Cherry Garden leave; Twilight did not admit it to herself, but this pony's behavior was becoming increasingly stranger, and she held the same desire as Spike: this pony was dangerous. She felt uneasy around her. She did her best to appear as kind as possible and silently encouraged Spike to do the same; in the same she countenanced undercurrent fear.

Neither of them thought to imagine the struggle going on within Cherry Garden. She was free of Discord, and Twilight thought that was end of it; in reality her own demons, her own personal suffering, still mocked her. Throughout her life ponies looked at her and had pronounced her ignorant, insane, manic, messy, a failure... was it true, she wondered? She was no unintelligent pony: she was clever and creative, a master of observation. With a keen eye she observed her own actions, her own attempts to quiet the plague of poisonous ideas: her pacing, her strange deep breath--to any pony this would appear to be the mark of insanity. She felt depraved. Her mind raced. What could she say?

"The hours I shared with you were a bit too trying and difficult for us both; it was agony." Cherry Garden smiled strangely, her whole body tilted slightly, inquisitively.

Twilight was taken aback. "Cherry--"

Cherry Garden cut her off with a sob. A worry plagued her. Depression trapped her in a wall and silenced her heart. How could she clearly express to Twilight her feelings during her dream? How could she explain those own emotions that were an enigma even to herself? She bucked the couch so hard she broke one of its internal beams. Her thoughts were obscure and her manners were just as ambiguous. She felt disgusting.

"Sorry," Cherry Garden managed after a long sigh, cringing while glancing at the now sunken couch.

Twilight smiled only with her lips. Twilight slowly approached Cherry Garden; slowly, not from sympathy, but from a strange revulsion that rose within her that she even now revolted of herself and began to question from whence it exactly came. Thoughts of Discord hurting this poor filly came to her mind, and the revulsion struggled against real feelings of pity. The battle played on her face. Cherry Garden watched as, very quickly, Twilight's smile lingered on the lips, and then, as care won over caution, it grew to include her eyes smiling warmly. She leaned forward and hugged Cherry Garden. Cherry Garden tensed oddly.

"I was afraid you would only see me as everypony does... I am a nopony..." Twilight's embrace loosened and tightened again. Cherry Garden could not see her expression flash between tender care and annoyance at Cherry Garden's lack of trust in her--her who alone stood with her and defended her and helped her. Divining her feelings, Cherry Garden made to try to soothe her friend: "I've been hurt so often, is it so strange that an animal would cringe at the offering of a rare treat, and doubt?"

Her words only threw Twilight deeper into confusion. What is Cherry Garden thinking?

Twilight released Cherry Garden and exchanged glances with Spike.

"Cherry Garden, you don't have to be afraid anymore. Discord is gone. You're free." Twilight smiled sweetly, only with her lips.

"You're among friends," Spike added comfortingly.

"Is there something still the matter?" Twilight forced a full smile that appeared natural.

Cherry Garden spat out a lavender strand of hair. She straightened up and shook her head.

Spike, feeling trapped in the midst of a thick emotional air, cut it open with the suggestion of breakfast and rushed off to re-heat his close friend's and Cherry's meals.

"I'm so sorry I didn't ask sooner: of course you must be exhausted; no wonder you're acting so strange. Let's go eat; I'm starved!" Twilight spoke on Spike's behalf. She stood up proudly, and immediately set to tidying up the room, levitating the pillows here and the book over there. Helping Cherry Garden up hadn't even crossed her mind.

Cherry Garden felt a pang of envy watching Twilight preform magic with such ease. And even with this luxury, Twilight could still be troubled. If even this pony could face insurmountable troubles she could not overcome even with magic, what of her, Cherry Garden, who could not ease her lot with the aid of magic? There was a pleasure she could never experience without magic, and any pleasure Cherry Garden could feel as being an earth pony, could not Twilight easily achieve it? The thought stung Cherry Garden that there was something forever beyond her reach; she was trapped.

Twilight repaired the couch, good as new, in a flash of magic.

As her thoughts drifted to her art, Twilight broke Cherry Garden's meditative spell with a placid plea to follow her into the kitchen. Cherry Garden shot her an irritated look behind her back and followed. Her eyes were glued to Twilight's tail, swishing to and fro rhythmically as she glided into the kitchen. When they sat at the table, Spike holding the plates in his paws, about to quick-heat them with a blast of his fire from his mouth, Cherry Garden tore away from Twilight's tail with a great struggle. She noticed her bag hanging onto the back of her own chair. Her earlier irritation had fallen away.

Spike set their plates and glasses of orange juice before them on the table and slid into his seat next to Twilight.

"This looks absolutely delicious... Spike!" Cherry Garden grinned childishly.

Twilight picked up her fork and knife in her magic, cut a slice of her pancake, but from some lapse of memory, had forgotten to add the syrup. Spike started up to retrieve it, but before he could even stand,Twilight levitated it from the cabinets and over her plate. She poured it gently and precisely, not too much nor too little. She set it on the table near to Cherry Garden's juice.

Twilight, as she turned down to eat, watched Cherry Garden out of the corner of her eye. Spike tried to look as though he were observing something in the living room, behind Twilight, but he too watched Cherry Garden struggle.

Cherry Garden grabbed the syrup bottle in her mouth, and tilted it over the pancakes. It slipped slightly and poured out too much too quickly. Syrup got on her eggs and vegetables. She set the bottle back down quickly. Twilight and Spike found it surprising that she didn't seem alarmed when the syrup had spilled out. Cherry Garden tilted her head to better get at the syrup dripping down her chin with a wild lick. Her face clean, her head dove into her plate with a mark of decorum, but her manners were unruly. She attempted to cut her pancakes by hitting them with the knife, after having tried and failed to cut them as Twilight had. After failing with that attempt, she stabbed at them. She smiled excitedly. She stabbed at them again and again, producing loud clinks and clangs on the plate.

Spike couldn't stand it anymore. He stood in his chair, leaned far over the table, and seized the knife. Cherry Garden was shocked.

"Let me." He had repressed the urge to shout "Stop!"

"But... I had it," she said, her face sunken and her eyes moist.

So this is the pony, whose strange ways even scare Pinkie? Twilight watched as Cherry Garden tilted her glass, nearly spilling it over trying to drink from it. Spike had taken Cherry's plate and was cutting the pancakes.

"Cherry, why don't you use your hooves, dear?"

Cherry Garden picked the glass up, and neatly took a sip with no struggle.

"See?" Was that so hard, Cherry? But really! I know you must be shaken up, but what are you thinking?

Spike finished. He returned her plate and sat back down next to Twilight, flabbergasted at Cherry's behavior: wouldn't any pony know to use their hooves?

Cherry Garden plunged her head right back into her plate, after a quick thanks. She used her lips to pull her food into her mouth. The eggs, the vegetables, and the pancakes, together! In the same mouth-full!

Twilight couldn't eat. Even Pinkie would eat swallow one food before inhaling the next. With Pinkie around, she was used to strange behavior... but this--this was different. Pinkie would do crazy things out of fun, but Cherry seemed to do it all in a rush.

"Why are you eating like that?" Spike asked.

"What? Flavor!" She stopped eating and swallowed what was in her mouth. "I'm sorry, am Ah bothering y'all?"

Spike smirked at Cherry's sudden fall into a country drawl. They hadn't noticed it ere that point, but Cherry did have a slight accent to her voice; what kind, however, they could not place.

"Well... um, kinda. I mean, it is a little weird." Twilight nervously laughed.

"Should I use my fork, then?" Cherry Picked it up in her mouth, moved it around as dexterously as she had the paint brushes in the dream, stabbed some pancakes on it, and flipped it round into mouth.

Why hadn't she done the same with the knife? Twilight surprised herself with her rise in agitation at something so silly. But the way this pony behaved: there was no sense to it! She sighed. Cherry Garden, though not as hyper as some ponies was certainly the most inconstant. And now she eats just fine, wielding the fork and knife as well as though she has used them all her life. That mutilated ear of her's caught Twilight's attention. She turned away sharply. The ear twitched disturbingly. As though to bring some relief to her ill feelings, and bring her own attention away from the ear she still could not stand looking at:

"Cherry Garden, you could hold your silver-wear the way it was meant to, you know." Twilight gestured with her own hooves how to hold them. Cherry Garden followed her advice and sighed.

So this is how she is? Cherry Garden thought. She forgot to consider whether her behavior while eating might be seen as marked affront to Twilight. Cherry Garden usually ate alone; almost exclusively. She was unaccustomed to company, though she knew very well how to behave in it. It had crossed her mind to behave strictly and formally, but, while having stared at Twilight's tail, she soothed and relaxed, and so lost herself to behaving as she does alone; she felt she could trust Twilight to accept her for who she is. This was not so. This will not do...

Twilight shattered the silence between them when Cherry ate more soft with the fork in her hoof.

"I--"

Cherry Garden coughed in a rather funny way and shifted in her seat.

"I was wondering about some things that happened in the dream." Cherry Garden suddenly inhaled in a short burst. "How much was true, and how much was created by Discord?" What did you mean when you said that none of "it" was true? She said in the expression on her face.

"What are your bruises from?" Spike asked sympathetically.

Twilight started. She hadn't noticed: there were light bruises on Cherry Garden's neck. Her expression betrayed her deep concern.

Cherry Garden took a deep breath.

Twilight placed her knife and fork on the table.

Cherry Garden put down her utensils and turned her head away, downcast.

"So this is what it is all about!" Cherry slammed her hooves on the table, spilling the glasses. She took an angry pleasure in every syllable. Twilight's lack of simplicity, artificial manner, and nervousness had long been irritating her. Cross and frowning, "You. YOU!" She shook. Her thoughts raced.

Spike and Twilight were frightened at her sudden transformation; Spike hid behind Twilight, and Twilight stepped back from her chair, drifting back into the counter behind her.

In actuality she was not entirely angry at Twilight, but Twilight had reminded herself of her life up to that point. She vividly recalled those moments of yesterday, at Sweet Apple Acres, in frightening clarity. She couldn't recount that. She couldn't! How much worse it was than Discord had portrayed to Twilight: the verbal abuse; the brutal attacks on her soul; the grossest insults to pony-feelings. The rope she used on her own neck after it all. The trouble she went through to hide the pain in her throat last night and this morning was intolerable. Twilight's friends hurt her, but she just couldn't betray them to her... even if it was true. She was afraid. It made no sense: why couldn't she just tell Twilight? There was something, something like a parasite, that attached itself to her heart and made her believe she deserved the suffering she endured...

Screaming, screaming. She screamed at Twilight, the latest of those few ponies who cared for her. You little shit! she inwardly told herself. On Twilight, she let loose a barrage of some of the pain in her soul.

"You see these artists today--countless damn artist--they call themselves that: artists! They have turned their duty into their right and turn out many harmful pieces of music, visual art, written art--poison, the whole of it! An artist's utopia is a terrifying thing! You see they create for profit and entertainment: an escape for depraved ponies! This art can help alleviate a mood, but the soul of it merely dulls the pain while not considering the source! They copy each other, feeding the pubic what it wants--a taste they have acquired by what the artists have fed them! Dulling their consciences!" (She threw her plate across the room, and it shattered against the wall.) "Art is a powerful way to convince ponies, therefore one must be very careful in its use. If there existed none of this entertainment, over half of all the ponies would at once rush their heads against a rock, for it is intolerable to live against one's conscience, and most do! Lies sell the most--try to make a living telling the truth, and they will throw you out in to the streets! I pity them! Idle! Idle! Idle! Idle! How afraid they are, clinging to their debris! Art should bring a new emotion into our life. It should be a gift, not a simple means of profit or idle divertimento... I have put my life into my work, and have lost half my mind doing so!"

Cherry spun around, huffed, threw her hoof onto her chest, coughed, spit, took a deep breath, cringed, and laid herself prostrate on the hardwood floor, belly up, breathing in deep droughts of air.

"I'm fine! I'm sorry!" There was no possibility of spilling her whole heart out. Her rant was a mask.

Twilight and Spike were stunned: what should they do? After the initial fright, Twilight had listened to what Cherry Garden was telling her. Highly idealistic, she thought with a smile like a frown.

Cherry flipped her self over, buried her face into her fore-hooves, hidden, and audibly cried. Hot tears streamed down her cheek. The unpleasant salty smell that accompanies them stung her nose, slowly becoming comforting like a wall that protects.

Twilight knelt beside her. She laid a comforting hoof over her head, stroking her mane rhythmically. There was silence between them for many moment. Silence that was peaceful for Cherry Garden, but for Twilight Sparkle, they were uncomfortable: she should say something, anything to help; this lack of talk felt very much like a void needing to be filled with something.

What should she say? Should she say that Cherry had nothing to worry about? Should she assure her that she stood there beside her? Memories of their dream together floated up. Cherry Garden, and time with her, was a regular roller coaster of emotions.

Perhaps she really is disturbed? And if Cherry Garden was, was she to turn her out of her house, or help her? The answer wasn't immediately apparent. I have always stood by my friends... they are afraid of Cherry Garden for a reason. Have they seen something in her I haven't? Could she be some new threat to Equestria in a way I haven't seen? Some kind of monster? Her friends would certainly not approve of her being friends with some pony they didn't like and believed was dangerous--would they walk away from her? No! No! She felt sick; the sharp blade of the knife played with the heartstrings that connected her with her friends, threatening to cut them: the pain like an exposed nerve. She didn't have the strength for that...

Spike came up to Twilight; his eyes were fixed on her with imploring insistence; his lips quivered piteously. Neither knew what Cherry Garden tried to get at; why she burst into an uproar; what upset her. If she might suddenly attack them.

"It'll be alight, my friend," Twilight said to her herself, under her breath.

Cherry Garden slammed her head once on the floor, and then lay still. She broke the beginning of a moan and lay silent. She inched her head closer to Twilight. Like a cat, she pressed into Twilight's hoof.

Twilight wanted to jump up and run away: was Cherry Garden displaying... romantic affection?

Cherry Garden sat up at stared at them both with those same mechanical eyes that had earlier filled Spike with dread. Imperceptibly, they softened. She leaned into Twilight, eyes locked. She rested her lips up next to Twilight's ear. The mutilated ear glared at Spike.

"I want to give you something."

Cherry Garden slid away to retrieve her bag. Twilight held her breath; Spike tugged on her mane.

"She's crazy, Twi!" Spike hissed under his breath, so only Twi could hear.

Cherry Garden is an isolated pony. To know, that no matter who you are friends with, that when you leave them, they will not look after you, walk to you, or call out to you; they let you leave without promise, or desire, of a welcomed return. Cherry Garden choked as she pulled out a large rolled canvas from her bag. The thought brought physical pain. Even now, she saw, the bruises on her neck were forgotten in Twilight's mind; the words given through the cypress tree, ultimately left unrecieved and dropped on the ground like an unwanted gift of the heart. If Twilight forgot these, why not let her have her way, let her get on with her day and on with her life; go back to her friends and smile? That was a picture she (Cherry Garden) needn't be a part, nor was even welcomed to. She accepted it with an inward cringe and a silent whimper.

Twilight couldn't deny Spike's words. Thinking over the dream anew, she had trouble, now, dismissing Discord's claims. She hoped to say something before Cherry Garden unrolled the canvas, but Cherry flung it out over the floor before her, before the words even formed in her mouth.

The picture at first appeared to be an abstract. The bold brush strokes and moving colors shocked her more than she had expected. The dark strokes in the foreground were in a fury, attacking everything in sight--over two-thirds of the canvas. Bursts of yellow, white, and pale green and blue, lit up like a forest fire in the dead of night. Great blue-ish-violet trunks, all nearly straight but for one, like the legs of some forsaken pony thrown into the pits, in the thick of being swarmed by the dark strokes. Up and up; twisting, gnawing, slashing, infecting! Their assault was relentless, furious, and frightening; they consumed their victims. The background stood out bright, juxtaposed against the dark mass, making it appear all the darker; those colors, even the brighter tree trunks, and even the blue of one seemed brighter, appeared another world to Twilight; utterly indifferent and cut off from the terror below it. And yet, in spite of this impression she made, the painting was breathtakingly beautiful. The infinite amount of strokes, the perfectly laid and placed colors, showed a deep love and understanding for her subject Twilight had never known. The painting was alive and breathing! It was clear that here Cherry Garden expressed both tender care and suffering.

It brought with it all the intense impressions of life in the images in the dream.

"Ivy loves the branchless willow and the old trunk of the oak in spring. Cancer, even chaos, is like that strange plant--it attaches itself and clings to ponies who lived good and generous lives."

Cherry Garden stared into her painting like one about to make a rapid exchange of elements. She allowed her mane to cover her neck completely. She swallowed; the pain worsened. The jerk of her head it elicited seemed like a pony cracking their neck, about to fight. Spike started up suddenly and excused himself to clean up. Twilight silenced Cherry from speaking up about it with a simple wave of her hoof and a significant look. Spike was far more easily frightened than Twilight; and besides, Twilight mused, Cherry Garden and her should talk alone.

Twilight enveloped the canvas in her field of magic and levitated it in front of her; incidentally, she told herself, it prevented an unwanted possibility of seeing that ear again.

"Cherry Garden, please follow me out into the next room where we will have more free space?" she said without removing her barrier.

Cherry Garden assented. She backed her saddle bag, empty save for the painting of Discord, and followed Twilight out into the living room, and then into the library.

Twilight held the painting behind her, as though considering where to place it on the walls; the gesture effectively blocked Cherry's view of her. She didn't do this intentionally, at first. That fact was that, despite memories from what she had learned about Cherry Garden, and even the overwhelming feelings of something almost like peace she got from the painting, Cherry Garden was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable. She could almost feel her gaze boring through the painting and into her. The sound of her hoof-steps: Cherry Garden was standing as close as possible behind her, probably nearly right up against the canvas.

She's been through so much, though, she told herself. How do I expect to her to behave? Well, certainly not like this! She trotted to another corner of the room. "Where would you place it, Cherry?" Her voice sounded so artificial: just keeping appearances. What should I say? What should I say? What should I tell her? She's a suffering pony--the strangest, most volatile pony I've met, but still a lonely and suffering pony.

"I can't very well see anythin' with ya holding the painting in front of me like that! Put it up somewhere so I can see how it looks on the walls."

"Cherry Garden, this painting, your art, is simply amazing! I could really see you becoming very famous one day. Hey! I can even help! Princess Celestia is the ruler of all Equestria and my teacher, after all. If any pony can spread the word of your amazing talent and help you sell your paintings, it's her! You may even become known as the most celebrated artist; you'll be considered one of the best! Seriously, your paintings are like nothing I've ever seen: they're powerful and full of life! Then you won't have to struggle anymore, right? Then you'll have friends? Then you'll have many ponies who'll love you!" Where had that come from? Twilight spun around and threw the painting aside like scrap-paper in the wind.

Cherry Garden was on the floor, head fallen, tears streaming down her face.

Twilight's first impression was of Cherry crying out of happiness: tears of thanks. She smiled. All she really needs is a friend who loves her. The thought filled her heart with warmth. She felt she had meant every word she said about Cherry Garden's work. And heck, once she became a well recognized artist, her eccentricities and passionate nature would even become a kind of legend among artists. Suddenly that ear became more a thing to celebrate rather than a thing to be dreaded; it too became part of the art. It was for her a profound moment that took only an instant to create. She quietly told Cherry Garden. She was very proud of herself.

It was a profound moment that took only an instant to destroy, and burst into flames. Cherry Garden's tears, she knew, were tears of agony.

Cherry Garden struck out and hit Twilight across the face. Her eyes were livid and wild. She looked like a monster!

"You're a monster! That would be among the grossest atrocities! To be thought of like that--to be frozen, to be an idol--I would rather kill myself!" Her eyes widened. She turned away from Twilight and put a hoof to her throat. She coughed painfully, breathed hard, and returned, her eyes glowing with hot tears. "Twilight, don't ever say that! Don't ever do it! Ponies would see me for someone I am not. They would see me idealized. They would place me on a stand, atop a pillar, completely isolated, upon which I could not be touched and from which I could not touch others. They would praise me for what they think they know about me, which I account far worse than the position I am in now! As an idol, I'd become nothing more than an idea of their own creation, far from who I am--I would cease to live and become stale in their minds. Oh Celestia! I would rather kill myself than see that day when I become the lowest I can become! I have pretty much decided to kill myself..." A terrifying monster of loneliness reared its ugly head within her. She shook her mane wildly, attempting to shake those painful memories from her head, muttering to herself so Twilight could not hear: "These dark shadows that fill me with terror!"

Twilight fell back, again completely stunned by Cherry Garden's incoherent ranting.

"I'm sorry," Cherry burst out. "I'm sorry! I didn' mean to hit ya... I... I..." She lost herself and trembled as though she had a fever. Her teeth chattered and her mutilated ear twitched disgustingly. She couldn't speak and could hardly breathe. She looked as though she would fall into convulsions. Such were the feelings of loneliness in her heart that translated into feelings of real physical pain.

"I'm leaving," she gasped. "I won't bother you again!"

Memories of her life had flashed before her. The countless ponies around her who pronounced her worthless. Her late appearing cutie mark. The heartless rejection and even verbal abuse from multiple love-interests she had had. The starvation she went through for lack of money and kindness shown to her. Even the selling of her own body brought no funds to ease her lot. Her murdering a fellow painter. Her dearest and closest painter-friend striking her down. The slow cutting off of her own ear. The hopelessness. The hallucinations. Being admitted into an asylum. Her own parents rejecting her. Her younger sister's whole-hearted devotion to her touched her with particular pain: it was all wasted on a wretch like her! The agonizing pain of her loneliness. She recalled her few friends. She wondered if she would ever see them again.

She choked and opened the front door. She wished it was all over now. It would be soon.

No! I am her friend too! I have to act! Twilight shot up and held Cherry's hoof in her gentle magic, which she replaced with the gentle touch and tender warmth of her own hooves. Cherry Garden's face blanched, pale as a ghost. Twilight let her hooves drop. Her head sunk and fell into her shoulders. She was about to say something in protest, but could not.

"It's late," Cherry Garden breathed painfully.

Twilight took a step back and swallowed audibly. She forced a smile which Cherry warmly returned as mechanically as a mirror.

"Thank you, my dearest friend."

The words sounded as though they came from beyond a wall. Cherry started down the path, repressing the increasing pain and difficulty breathing, leaving Twilight a look like a promise to see her again. She floated away like a vaguely familiar wraith.

Cherry Garden smiled strangely. Twilight Sparkle knew the smile to be one of suffering.

"Good-bye for today. I have to go out to work."

Discord van Gogh

by HeartTortoisePigeonDog

Olive Grove

Cypresses

Wheat Field Under Discord's Skies

Good-Bye For Today...