Applejack begins to notice suspicious behavior in her friend Twilight. As she presses for the truth, she discovers the truth about their world.
They are not alone.
Somewhere, there is another Equestria, another world in which copies of the Element Bearers live different lives, unaware of the destiny that was almost theirs. A world shrouded in darkness.
As these two worlds begin to collide, six strangers will discover that they must inherit the mantles passed down by their alternate selves and become heroes in a world without rainbows.
(Very) loosely inspired by the television show Fringe.
The voice carried authority. It was the voice of a pony who had the situation under control, who knew what she was doing at all times, almost laughter in the face of peril. But it was also an honest voice, one of compassion and loyalty, one whose softness came not from weakness, but from kindness. It was a magical voice. Most of all, it was a voice of royalty, and it spoke again.
"Twilight Sparkle," said Princess Celestia. "Pray tell, what do you think you are doing?"
In the middle of the large chamber, the unicorn pony Twilight Sparkle searched desperately for an exit, but the royal guards had already blocked them all. The question gave her reason to pause, and she wondered what she was doing. She didn't remember how she had gotten here, only that she needed to escape.
One of the guards, a blue earth pony named Silver Shield, pressed himself against the wall, trying to hide. You foal, he chastised himself. You should be protecting the princess, not being a coward. Before he could make a move, a gray pegasus pony emerged from the darkness behind the princess. He recognized her as his old friend, Stone Wall.
"Stand back, your highness," warned Stone Wall. "Your life is more valuable than that of this traitor."
"Nonsense," said Celestia. "Let me speak to her."
Twilight grinned. "Your guard is right, Celestia," she said, her scorn clear. "You should listen to them more often. But if we're speaking about lives, then I have a proposition to make." Her horn began to glow with an intense light that forced the guards to close their eyes. Only Celestia looked on, unfazed. A similar light formed around Stone Wall, and the mare discovered that she was leaving the ground. She was pulled across the room until she was hovering directly above Twilight. "Let me go," she said. "Or else I snap her neck."
Silver Shield couldn't help himself. "Wally!" he cried, accidentally using her nickname.
Celestia remained calm, and Twilight wondered if she was getting through to the stubborn princess at all.
"Nopony has to die today, Twilight," said Celestia. "If you would merely return that which you have taken, then perhaps we can resolve this peacefully."
Twilight was enraged. "What, so you can hide it away again in some dusty old cellar? Control the ponies' knowledge, keep them pinned down?" She lowered her gaze, and the shame of her past transgressions passed through her. "I know I've done bad things before, your Highness. I don't deserve the power within the Element of Magic. But neither does a tyrant. Better my hooves than yours."
Twilight knew she was past the point at which she could escape without any violence. She was preparing to fight her way out when the princess's words shocked her.
"Let her pass," she instructed the guard beside her.
"No!" cried Stone Wall from her place above Twilight. "If that stone does what you said it does, then we need to protect it. Somepony like her could wreak havoc."
"My decision is final, Stone Wall," said Celestia. "Let Twilight go free."
Twilight awoke to the sensation of water pouring down her face. She was in the perpetual gloom of the Everfree Forest, her body sunk into the thick mud that coated much of the ground. Dazed, Twilight saw no problem with letting the world spin in circles around her for a little while.
After a minute, Twilight's eyes had focused and adjusted to their environment, and she tried to stand on her hooves, but as she did, the world shifted out of focus, up became down, and she found herself lying on her side.
Another splash of water hit her flank, and she shivered at the cold. She tried to figure out where it had come from, and she finally concluded that it was raining. The canopy was blocking and gathering most of the water, until the weight became too great and the water would be dumped in a single moment on anything that may have been lying below. See? thought Twilight. At least your brain still works.
Instead of trying her seemingly useless body, Twilight instead considered what she could do with her mind. Her first priority was to figure out what she was doing here. She tried to think back to the night before, but found nothing. It was like a dream, with a middle but no beginning. She knew who she was. Her name was Twilight Sparkle. She was Princess Celestia's apprentice. She turned these thoughts over in her head, quickly confirming them before moving on to the more complicated ones. She had been sent to Ponyville to learn friendship, and she had met timid Fluttershy, kind Applejack, brash Rainbow Dash, eccentric Pinkie Pie, and stubborn Rarity. She met Zecora on a trip in the Swayback Mountains.
But what then? What was the short term, the events leading up to her strange awakening? Twilight couldn't recall. Feeling a little better, she stood, and while the forest swayed beneath her and threatened to toss her aside, she held her ground and stared down the feeling until it gave up and went away. The one thing Twilight knew was that she wasn't going to get any answers lying in the mud. Picking a random direction, Twilight began to walk, and while she did, she pondered her dream.
It didn't feel like most dreams. Her past dreams usually faded after a couple minutes, leaving behind only brief flashes of color and emotion. But this one stuck, almost like it wasn't a dream at all, but a memory that didn't tie in with the rest, and so she had assumed she had dreamed it. She saw it in perfect clarity, the calm in her mentor's voice and the anger of the somehow-familiar pony she had lifted above her head.
But it couldn't have been real, of course. Levitating an entire, struggling pony for such an extended period without breaking a sweat was a bit beyond her ability.
A loud noise, like the screeching of an owl, echoed from Twilight's left, and she winced in pain. Her head was pounding, and she brought a hoof to her forehead in hopes that it would help her cope. Instead, her hoof came away sticky. She realized now that she needed to find better shelter. The dark dampness of the forest could not possibly be healthy, especially in her potentially concussed state. Maybe she could find Zecora to help her.
Except Zecora was where she had come from. She remembered now that she had been returning to Ponyville from Zecora's home when she'd collapsed. But it hadn't been raining, nor had it been this dark. Twilight turned around and began walking back the way she came. Unfortunately, the path looked nothing like where she had been moments ago. Her walk until this point had been completely level, but now the forest seemed to slope downward in front of her, almost inviting her into its depths. Twilight considered stopping and resting, or perhaps calling for help, but before she could make up her mind, her front hoof hit a stump, and she tumbled.
She rolled down the hill, the thorns and branches tearing at her as she passed them. The ground finally leveled out by a lakebed, and Twilight slowed to a halt, her head half-submerged in the water. Unable to gather the strength to stand again, she wondered if she was going to die when a four-legged figure appeared on the other side of the lake, silhouetted by the darkness and Twilight's own mind-fog.
Zecora? she remembered thinking before the darkness swallowed her up completely.
Applejack surveyed the ponies gathered around a simple wooden circular table. "Is everypony accounted for?" she asked, even though it was clear they all were.
"Aye, aye, Captain Jack!" shouted Pinkie Pie as she saluted as she lay on her back partially beneath the table, her pet alligator Gummy in her lap.
Rarity was a bit preoccupied eying her surroundings with disgust. "Yes, but why did we have to meet here?" They were inside one of the Apple family's barns, and the smell reminded Rarity of one of the "surprises" Opalescence had left after she had eaten one too many outdated treats.
Fluttershy, who had until this point said nothing, boldly attempted to answer Rarity's question. She tried to explain that Apple Bloom's treehouse, the original meeting place, was still being rebuilt after the latest attempt by the Cutie Mark Crusaders to find their talents had backfired in an embarrassing and extremely combustible way (an incident Apple Bloom refused to elaborate on, other than to state that it was "a minor miscalculation"), but as she opened her mouth she was interrupted by Rainbow Dash.
"Yes, Applejack," she said, irritated. "Everypony's here but Twilight. Now will you please just tell us what this is all about?"
"But that's exactly what it's about," said Applejack. The other ponies stared at her, uncomprehending. "Twilight," she clarified. "Don't y'all think she's been acting mighty strange recently?"
"Yeah, of course we have," said Rainbow Dash, who actually hadn't noticed at all.
"Now that you mention it," mused Rarity, putting a hoof to her mouth in thought. "She's been quite kind to me recently, letting me put her in my dresses to see how they fit."
"That's not what Applejack means at all, Rarity," said Pinkie Pie, and her voice echoed across the barn. "Haven't you noticed how she's been behaving these past couple weeks? She's been really really, well, Twilight!"
Rainbow Dash shot Pinkie a glare that was a mix of frustration and confusion. "And that's weird, why, exactly?" she asked.
Pinkie Pie shook her head. "No, I mean super-duper Twilight. Like, extra Twilighty. You know how she spends a lot of time reading and not wanting to go sky diving or ice cream tasting or skating or skiing or hang gliding or cake decorating or any of the fun stuff? She's even worse about it now. She doesn't even pretend anymore, and when she does, like when she's trying on Rarity's dresses, she gets all funny about it, like she's doing it because she has to, but she wants to be somewhere else. It's like she never learned anything about how fun friends can be."
Applejack quieted the rest of them. "What Pinkie Pie and I have been trying to say is, something's funny going on with Twilight. Whatever it is, we need to let her know we're there for her."
"Right," said Fluttershy, who hadn't been following the conversation but felt that she should agree anyway. She'd been noticing changes in Twilight too. She never seemed to want to talk anymore. "What do we do?" she asked.
Pinkie was the first to answer. "A party, duh," she said, as if the other ponies were stupid for not knowing the obvious. "A good party can wipe a frown like that off of anypony. Even a grim-dark-sadface-pony like Twilight."
Dash seemed skeptical. "So Twilight wants to be left alone sometimes," she said. "There's nothing wrong with that, and a party isn't going to change anything."
Applejack ignored her. "I'll leave Pinkie Pie in charge of planning the party," she said. "A surprise party at the Sugar Cube Corner. How does that sound? Anypony opposed to the idea, say Neigh."
Rainbow Dash sighed in frustration, but nopony said neigh. And so it was decided, and Pinkie Pie set to work preparing Twilight's surprise party. She hung balloons across the store, which she had twisted into the shapes of different foods. After a couple balloon cakes and balloon pineapples, Pinkie realized the difficulty in twisting balloons with hooves and decided to make the rest hot dogs. She prepared a batch of cupcakes filled with chopped up sprinkles she decided, in a spur of the moment decision, to name "Sparkle Bits." By the next day, the Sugar Cube Corner had been transformed into a festive environment. Even Rarity failed to hide her amazement.
"Wow," the unicorn pony had said upon seeing all the brightly colored streamers and balloons. "You, er, outdid yourself this time, Pinkie."
"The banner was a nice touch," added Applejack, gesturing toward the large banner which read, "Welcome to your surprise party, Twilight Sparkle". "Although the bottom half it looks erased and re-written," she added as an afterthought.
"Just making do with what I got," said Pinkie, proud of herself.
"It is very pretty," added Fluttershy quietly.
"Yup!" said Pinkie Pie. "Only the best for Twilight. I can't wait to see the look on her face when Rainbow Dash brings her back here!"
"Actually," said Rainbow Dash, who was now standing in the doorway, a folded paper in her mouth, "she's not home."
"What?" screamed Pinkie Pie, and Applejack covered her ears.
"She's not home," Rainbow repeated. "Not a big deal, we'll stop by later. And she left a note. See?" She spit out the paper, which fluttered gently to the floor.
Rarity levitated the note, shuddering in disgust at the saliva still dripping off of it. "Gone to Zecora's. Be back soon," she read aloud. "That's all it says." She stared at Rainbow Dash. "You could have just told us."
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Sorry," she muttered.
"No party..." said Pinkie Pie softly, still in a state of shock.
Applejack patted Pinkie on her back. "Sorry, sugar," she said. "We'll still party, just tomorrow."
Pinkie's face instantly lit up. "Yay!" she shouted, beginning to literally bounce off the walls. She gathered some boxes from a back room and began neatly storing the party decorations. The other ponies, after a brief goodbye, left to return home. As Rarity left, however, she felt a hoof on her shoulder, stopping her. The look of urgency and worry on Applejack's face, told Rarity enough, and she turned and followed her friend as they walked toward the front of the ranch.
"Something's not right here," began Applejack, after they were a safe distance away from anypony else. "I can't say why, but it reeks something awful."
Rarity nodded. "I didn't believe you until I saw the note. But it just doesn't sound like something Twilight would write."
"Exactly," said Applejack. "This is Twilight the egghead we're dealing with. She once wrote me an eight page apology letter because she was too busy to go kelp-fishing with me. A six word note just don't seem her thing at all."
"I could check the writing," offered Rarity.
"Do it. I knew something fishy was going on with Twilight. And I won't stop until we get to the bottom of it, honest."
Twilight was wandering through the Swayback Mountains. Somewhere, some part of her knew that this was wrong, that it didn't make sense for her to be here. She knew she was still lost in the Everfree Forest. But these thoughts, if they were real, had no effect on her actions, as she continued her trot toward a stone building set within the mountains themselves.
Once inside, the path slanted downward, into the heart of the mountain, and soon it became too dark to see. At this, Twilight stamped her hooves on the ground in rhythm. Two clops, a pause, and then three clops.
The lights went on in Twilight Sparkle's laboratory. Machines were set against the wall, lights glowing and gears grinding as they worked. At the moment they were connected to an elliptical dish, processing data gathered from the stars. A large circle was etched on the floor with chalk inside a ring of rubber tubing. Star charts, complete with scribbles and marker-drawn arrows, filled another wall. The large hollow room in the middle of the mountain, most of which Twilight had carved herself, had a disorganized feel when viewed all at once. Even her assistant could never figure out where things were kept, but Twilight knew. She had her own system of organization, even if it wasn't obvious to anypony but her.
Twilight refused to let herself get distracted; she had work to do. "Scribe, take a note." she ordered. A quill lying on the table nearby rose of its own accord, dipped its end into a bottle of ink, and began writing the words Twilight dictated.
"Geloto the Twelfth, year nine hundred and ninety eight of the reign of Celestia," she began. "First, a thank you to Madame, for generously donating the required materials for our experiments. Work is coming along very nicely, although some more tests need to be done before I can say with complete accuracy that the conclusions I've drawn are the correct ones. Running out of time, of course, so we may have to take some risks and plow ahead with minimal preparations." She levitated the crystal orb out of her satchel and set it on the table. "The Element of Magic is in our possession. One thousand years ago, so the legend goes, Princess Celestia's ancestor used it to defeat Nightmare Moon and seal her inside the moon. What the legend does not say, however, is why. Not is sufficient detail, at least. Nightmare Moon, although that's probably not her true name, so let's call her Suki. Suki was jealous of the Princess. Why? Because the Princess had more power than her? What if Suki was political opposition, and enough of a threat to force the Princess to take action? We don't know, and I refuse to make any assumptions until we find out.
"The legends also said that a thousand years later, the stars would aid in her escape, and it's vital the Element be in responsible hooves when that happens. Somepony devoted to the truth. Somepony able to tell right from wrong. And somepony powerful enough to defeat Nightmare Moon, if it comes to that. Somepony like me."
She walked over to the star chart, eying it carefully. "Still, information is missing. The mention of the stars in the prophecy has significance, I can feel it. There's just a piece or two missing, waiting to be found. When Nightmare Moon returns, I need to be ready. Because that's the day." She paused, a smirk spreading across her face. "That's the day I become famous."
Twilight woke up lost and confused for the second time. She was no longer outside in the cold, but rather in a warm and cozy, if very cramped, room. In the middle of the room a fire burned, and Twilight, feeling a bit too hot on the side facing the fire twisted around, letting the fire reach her in different spots, until she was satisfied and a goofy grin appeared on her. You probably look like Winona right now, she thought, chastising herself. She repositioned herself so that she was sitting neatly, and she looked around.
The first thing she noticed was the room's shape. It wasn't rectangular, and its corners were curved, hinting that she was in something that was hollowed out. There were no furnishings of any sort, and the wall was a dirty brown. The room had one exit, a rounded hole in the wall leading to a slightly larger room ringed by various vegetables, pitchers of milk, and medical appliances, all coated with a fine layer of dirt. Twilight's heart skipped a beat when she realized that the syringes and scalpels she saw may not have been cleaned before their last use. Given the general disarray of the home, cleanliness was unlikely.
Light came in from the entrance, a tunnel that sloped upward until it opened up on what Twilight could only assume was the surface, but it was still too dark to make out what lay beyond that. Twilight figured that this meant she was underground, that the cave had been carved into the earth. It reminded her a little of the cave in her dream.
With nothing else to do, Twilight reflected on the dream. The first dream had worried her, and she had briefly considered that maybe she was seeing things that hadn't happened yet. Was there magic that could do that? Twilight wondered. She didn't think so. It seemed too much in the realm of fantasy, like curses and hexes. Besides, the second dream had disproved that. The dream had a date. Geloto the Twelfth, 998. Two years ago. But that was impossible; Twilight had been studying at Cantorlot two years ago. There was no reason for her to carve out a new home in the Swayback Mountains. Maybe it was just a nightmare, she reasoned, brought about by a poorly timed baked bads incident. Any other alternative was ridiculous. Dreams don't have literal meaning, she reminded herself. Stuff like that is old mare's tales.
Besides, thought Twilight, there are more important things to deal with right now. She was in somepony else's home right now, somepony who had potentially saved her life. It only made sense that she should find this pony and thank him or her. But something about the closed space unnerved her, and Twilight realized that if she never found out who had saved her, it wouldn't trouble her in the least.
She lifted up a hoof. On one hoof, she didn't want to be a burden. On another, she thought, lifting up a second to represent her options, she really should at least say thanks. On a third hoof, anypony that lived in a hole in the ground couldn't be a pleasant pony. She lifted her fourth hoof and tumbled to the ground, thinking, on the last hoof, Zecora had taught her to have more trust in others. Shouldn't she at least give the stranger a chance?
Above her, Twilight heard a crash, followed by screaming. She scurried into the larger room and began climbing the slope to the door as quickly as she could. "Hello?" she called. "Are you all right?" As she emerged from the top, now covered in dirt, what she saw made her freeze: a squirrel riding atop a bright orange earth filly. Neither appeared to be enjoying the ride, as the filly was frantically trying to buck the squirrel off, a frenzied look in her eyes. The squirrel refused to let go, instead hissing into the filly's ear.
"Um, hello?" said Twilight nervously.
The filly only screamed in response, still trying to dislodge the animal in her fur.
Twilight sighed, and levitated the squirrel off. For about a second the squirrel's grip held, and it hung upside down, grasping onto whatever it could reach. But the force of Twilight's magic became too much, and the two newcomers were separated. The filly turned her head upward and shot the squirrel a raspberry, and the squirrel chattered back while throwing rude gestures.
"Well, that wasn't very nice of that thing," said the filly. "Don't you think so, miss?"
Twilight looked the filly over. Bright blue eyes filled almost her entire face, and a short-cut red mane dangled limply from her head. She was young, younger than Apple Bloom. And certainly too young to be wandering the Everfree Forest alone. Twilight tried to figure out which question to ask first.
The filly, bored of the silence, grabbed Twilight's hoof with her own and shook it vigorously. "Name's Pumpkin. Nice ta meetcha."
"Hello, Pumpkin," said Twilight, trying to be as friendly as possible. "What are you doing here alone?"
Pumpkin squinted at Twilight. "Explorin', duh. What else? But you should be careful, miss. Evil things lurk in these woods."
"Right," agreed Twilight. "So we should get you out of here as soon as possible."
Pumpkin shrugged off the suggestion. "Nah," she said. "You sound like my mum. I'm brave enough to handle myself. And don't worry. If anything does come after us, I'll protect you."
Twilight had to admire the filly's courage, and she wondered if Pumpkin had ever met Rainbow Dash. "There's more to it than courage, Pumpkin," she said. "Have you ever heard of the Ursa?"
Pumpkin looked up from a rock she had been sniffing with what Twilight decided was an unnecessary amount of interest. "Nope," she said. "But it doesn't sound that scary."
Twilight grinned and raised her forelegs above her head to resemble claws. "It's a giant monster that lives inside this very forest, bigger than Sugar Cube Corner. And it has enormous fangs that can rip a pony in half with a single bite. And they say if you wake it up by wandering too close to its den, it will keep chasing you forever until you leave the forest."
Pumpkin stared into Twilight's eyes, and for a moment Twilight believed her plan was working.
"Yawn," said Pumpkin at last.
"You aren't scared?" asked Twilight. She had considered using magic to make lights and noises in the background, but she worried that they would have been too effective for use on a young filly like Pumpkin. Now she was beginning to wish she had.
"Course not," said Pumpkin, laughing. "And course it's bigger than a sugar cube. Nopony would be scared of it otherwise."
"Fine," said Twilight, deciding to play along with Pumpkin's game. "I guess I'll accept your help. But stay close to me; I don't want to get lost."
"Then it's a good thing you have me," Pumpkin nearly shouted, "Cause I'm an adventurer, and we adventurers never get lost." She began to skip off into the darkness.
"Wait!" said Twilight, trying to keep up. Pumpkin stopped and turned, already getting bored with her new companion. "I mean," continued Twilight, "What were you doing when I found you? When you found me, I guess. How did you get here?"
"Well," said Pumpkin, "I was explorin', like I told ya. Only I didn't climb out of the ground like you did, and when I got too close to this hole, that squirrel started throwing a big ol' hissy fit. What happened to that thing, anyways?" She looked up to see that the squirrel, having accepted it fate to be free of gravity, was now performing acrobatic twists and turns in midair. Pumpkin looked at Twilight. "We gonna do something 'bout that?"
"Oh, right," said Twilight, embarrassed to have completely forgotten about the squirrel. But in that case, she reasoned, shouldn't the squirrel have fallen the moment she stopped thinking about it? Twilight shrugged and lowered the squirrel to eye level. "Are you going to stop bothering Pumpkin if I let you go?" she asked.
The squirrel chattered in response, and Twilight realized she didn't understand squirrel-talk. If only Fluttershy was here, she bemoaned. She removed the levitation, and the squirrel fell to the ground. It shouted something that sounded angry and then retreated into the hole Twilight had climbed out of.
Well," said Twilight. "Glad that's over with." As she raised her eyes, she looked out into the darkness on the other side of the cave. Two blue eyes stared back at her. "Pumpkin," she said quietly.
Pumpkin turned. "Yes?" she called with a volume that made Twilight flinch. "What is it?"
"Stand absolutely still," warned Twilight. "Don't make a sound."
"Why?" complained Pumpkin. "What's there?"
Twilight looked for the eyes again, but they were gone. "Nothing, I guess," she muttered. She could have sworn she saw something there, but whatever it was had vanished.
"What if it was Zecora?" Pumpkin asked.
Twilight stared at the filly. "What?"
"Lots of evil things in these woods, and Zecora's one of them. She's an enchantress who lures young fillies into the darkest parts of the woods and gobbles them up."
"I don't think so," said Twilight. "Who told you that?"
"My mum," said Pumpkin, offended. "And she's smart about stuff like that."
"I don't think that was Zecora," she said, hoping it was. Maybe then they were safe.
"Fine," said Pumpkin, grumpy. Then her face lit up. "Maybe it was a manaco."
"Pumpkin..." began Twilight. "And I think you mean a mantacore."
"Ooh, ooh, I got it this time!" shouted Pumpkin, excited. "It was a Twilight Sparkle!"
Twilight froze. "A what?" she asked. She must have just misheard the filly.
"Twilight Sparkle! She's an evil sorceress that lives up in the mountains. But sometimes she comes down to the forest to perform her magic rituals. And she doesn't eat fillies. She sucks out their souls with her magic." She looked at Twilight suspiciously. "What? You never heard of a Twilight Sparkle?"
She was standing over the magnifying sheet she used to inspect jewels. Two pieces of paper lay next to each other on a table. Applejack peered anxiously over her shoulder, curious to see what the other pony had seen, but also desperate to avert her eyes from anything else in the room. There was something about the Carousel Boutique that always put Applejack on edge. As far as the earth pony was concerned, the frilly outfits that decorated the back room were no different than shackles, and just looking at them made Applejack feel trapped.
"I don't see it," admitted Applejack. "Both of them look the same."
The first slip was the note Twilight had left. The second was a star chart Twilight had left with Rarity for reference during the fashion show incident. Notes were scrawled in the margins, labeling the constellations.
"The strokes in the note are more angular," explained Rarity. "You can clearly see where each line begins and ends. And they're a lot darker, like she was pressing into the paper a lot harder."
"So?" As far as Applejack was concerned, hoofwriting was hoofwriting.
"Their similar, I'll give them that. The letters are mostly drawn the same way. But Twilight has a distinctive style; it's constant everywhere on the chart. Light, elegant curves. Beautiful really, and certainly not the brutish markings on the note. She didn't write it. Somepony else did. Somepony trying to imitate her, perhaps, but not succeeding. In other words, a forgery."
Applejack smirked, looking vindictive but slightly surprised at their success. "You sure about this?" she asked.
"Not really," Rarity admitted. "We're making quite magnificent assumptions. Have you considered just asking her what's wrong?"
Applejack hadn't. "Like that would work," she said quickly, trying to defend herself. "If it was something she wanted us to know, don't you think she would tell us on her own?"
At this, something inside Rarity seemed to snap. "And if she doesn't want anypony to know, then why are you prying into her personal space like this? You know, for a pony obsessed with honesty, you can be quite untrusting."
Applejack felt like she had attacked. "Are you calling me a bad friend?" she hissed. "At least I care about Twilight enough to notice when something's wrong. And what do you do? Oh, right, you force her into dresses she really doesn't want to wear. You insult my character."
"And you insult my dresses," screeched Rarity in response. "I would never make Twilight do anything she's not comfortable with, unlike you. Why do you always have to be in everypony's business, Applejack? Who crowned you leader of Equestria?"
Out of breath, Rarity stopped talking and began panting. Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but she never got the chance.
"You know what?" shouted Rarity, levitating Twilight's note and tossing it in Applejack's face. "I regret ever helping you with this scheme of yours, and I want no more to do with it. Find your own reasons not to trust Twilight, but I certainly don't need any." She turned her tail to Applejack. "Get out," she said. "I don't want you in my shop anymore."
From another room, the two ponies heard a sound like glass shattering. "Oops," came the voice of Apple Bloom.
"Think big sis can fix that?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"So much for Cutie Mark Crusader Acrobats," muttered Scootaloo grimly.
Rarity scowled, trying to keep her breathing normal. "And take the girls with you, alright? If it's not too much trouble. Please?" Then she remembered that when she was angry, she was supposed to say angry things. "I mean, take them with you, Applejack. Out. Now."
Applejack turned and started toward the door. "Fine," she said. "I don't need your help. I'll solve this without you, and when I do, you can be the one to tell Twilight you didn't care about her enough to even look up from your silly dress-making to help her." Applejack raised her head, trying and failing to look dignified, and left the room.
Rarity hurriedly folded up the map, set it in the corner, and retrieved the dress she had been working on the day before. "Who needs a mess like her," Rarity wondered allowed as she worked. "That nose of hers is going to get her into trouble, one way or the other. And she better not come crying to me afterward, because I won't hear it." As she prepared to begin stitching the dress, she stopped and thought. "Well, maybe I will hear it, just so I can rub it in. She does try to have a good heart, after all."
Applejack searched the rooms of the Carousel Boutique until she found the Cutie Mark Crusaders, trying to glue together a shattered ceramic unicorn.
"Guess we're not Cutie Mark Crusader Repairponies, either," said Sweetie Belle, pouting.
Applejack remembered the unicorn. It was a hideous distorted figure that Rarity rather optimistically referred to as "Art."
"That's what you broke?" Applejack asked, amused.
Apple Bloom looked up at her big sister with fear in her large eyes. "Ya aren't mad, are ya?" she asked quietly.
Unable to control herself, Applejack began laughing. "Of course not," she said. "That's the best thing I've seen all day. Come on girls, you get to hang with auntie Applejack for a while."
The crusaders looked at each other nervously, and then, one at a time, a grin broke out on each of their faces. "All right!" shouted Scootaloo as she pumped one of her hooves into the air.
Applejack left the Boutique, and the crusaders followed, all four of them giggling. "Yeah," sighed Applejack as they walked. "I'm not mad. But Rarity'll kill you." Sweetie Belle shivered. "Although, nice job helping Rarity and me find the star chart."
"It's fine," said Apple Bloom. "We thought we could be Cutie Mark Crusader Treasure Seekers."
"I've got a question", said Scootaloo. "If you wanted something Twilight wrote down, why didn't you just search the library? You could swipe one of her journals or something."
Applejack stopped walking and looked at Scootaloo critically. "Okay Scoots. First thing, I think you need to spend less time with Rainbow Dash. Second thing, I'm not going to steal stuff from Twilight. It wouldn't be right or honest. 'Sides, Twilight locks the back rooms of the library when she's out. You don't know anypony who can pick locks, can you?"
Apple Bloom looked at the ground, shamed.
Scootaloo's eyes darted back and forth until they found Sweetie Belle, who was shaking her head.
Applejack stared at the trio incredulously. "You fillies are kidding me, right?" she asked.
"Well," began Apple Bloom nervously, "Do you really think we'd try something like Cutie Mark Crusader Treasure Seekers if we hadn't already tried all the fun ones?"
"We wanted to try being Cutie Mark Crusader Phantom Thieves," said Scootaloo.
Applejack sighed. "I guess I shouldn't expect less from the three of you," admitted Applejack. "'Cept maybe Sweetie Belle; she should know better. But I promise to forget you ever said that, so long as you don't remind me."
Ahead, Applejack spotted Rainbow Dash clearing the clouds from the sky. Rainbow Dash, noticing the four ponies, took a break from her duties and flew down in front of Applejack. "Hey, slowpoke," she taunted, "enjoying the view from down there?"
"Rainbow Dash," shouted Applejack, excited to see her for once. "Tell these ponies that we are not breaking into Twilight's place."
"I can't believe we're breaking into Twilight's place," muttered Applejack.
"Neither can I," said Rainbow Dash, rubbing her front hooves together. "Man, this is going to be awesome!"
They were hiding in the overgrowth behind the Ponyville library, waiting for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to unlock the back door.
"This is ridiculous," said Applejack. "I came because I promised I'd look after the girls, and Scoots was dead-set on going with you. But you don't even believe there's anything wrong with Twilight!"
"That's what this is about?" said Rainbow Dash. "I thought we were pranking her. I mean, Pinkie Pie was getting a little too miss Uppity Pony with that exploding cake of hers, and now she's going around like she's queen of pranks. Somepony needs to put her in her place with something totally awesome."
Applejack was skeptical. "And what 'totally awesome something' were you planning here, exactly?"
Rainbow Dash's jaw hung open, as if she couldn't believe she was being questioned. Then she gave up the charade and closed it. "I don't know," she admitted. "But it's going to be something awesome. More awesome than anything you lame ponies would ever think of doing," she said, getting defensive.
"And done!" squealed Apple Bloom, descending from a tree branch overhead. "The doors are open!"
"I still just don't feel right about this," said Applejack.
"Relax," laughed Rainbow Dash. "She's probably asleep by now. So just don't make too much noise."
Zecora peered at the face, critical.
The face stared back at her silently, it's large empty black eyes chilling her. That was the problem, Zecora decided, and she grabbed the white brush from the pallet, adding a small circle in the middle of each eye.
She stepped back to admire her artwork. She had decided to recreate some of the art she remembered owning as a foal, and although she had spent the entire morning hiding away in the back of her home, she'd gotten a lot of work done. Maybe now it won't look so dead, she thought. But it was still a work in progress. The bottom half of the mask hadn't been painted at all yet. But she would get it done, eventually. She had spent the last couple of days stockpiling herbs, and so she had a lot of free time. Stepping back into the main room to check on her cooking, Zecora wished someone had warned her that being self sufficient could be so boring.
As she dipped a ladle into the soup, testing its consistency, she heard the door swing open. She released the ladle, regretting the action moments later when it sank beneath the surface of the soup, and turned to face the newcomer.
"Twilight Sparkle, my special guest," she said, excited for the company to break the monotony. "Do you need something? I'll do my best." The expression on the unicorns face seemed distant but deadly serious. Zecora quickly grabbed a rug from the corner and laid it out by the fire. "Here, sit," she said.
"Zecora?" said Twilight softly. The zebra looked at her friend, worried. Twilight swallowed and continued. "It's me, Zecora."
Zecora swore, and Twilight admired her ability to maintain the couplet. "After all this, you still came," she said bitterly.
"I know you must think I'm a coward," Twilight told Zecora. "But let's face it. I failed. I have nothing over there, and she had everything. Friends, the sun, how could you blame me?"
"In that case," accused Zecora, "who should I blame? Impersonating Twilight Sparkle is not a victimless crime. She has done nothing and is a close friend of mine."
"It's not all bad," said Twilight, attempting to quickly cover herself. "If I can only discover how the ponies here defeated Nightmare Moon, then I can go back. We can call this a success. We can save the world."
Zecora laughed and stepped toward Twilight, staring her down. "Is that really why you came, to save the day? Or are you just running and hiding away? Do you ever plan to go back home? Or are you too afraid of being alone?"
Twilight's breathing became unsteady, but she attempted to maintain a steady voice as she spoke. "And what do you know about being alone?" she said. After the words left her mouth, she knew she had said something wrong. Zecora eyed her in the same manner that she might eye an ant. Twilight suddenly felt small and insignificant.
"I know it hurts you, inside," said Zecora. "I couldn't count the tears you've cried. Young Twilight had things you never knew, so you did some things you never thought you'd do. But as you took her place and stole her fate, you left her lost; you left her filled with hate. And so, my friend, one answer, if you dare: If you are here, then Twilight Sparkle is, where?"
Twilight didn't answer. Instead, as the tears welled up in her eyes, she fled. She ran out the door and through the underbrush of the Everfree Forest until she saw the lights of Ponyville up ahead. She blindly galloped along the streets until she was finally safe in the library she had made her home.
And then, filled with emotions she didn't know how to place, Twilight Sparkle cried. She cried, not knowing why. The fight with Zecora had left her feeling shamed and guilty. Why shouldn't you tell everypony the truth? she asked herself.
Because you're not her, a voice answered. You're not the Twilight they know. And as soon as they figure that out, they'll leave you. They don't care about you at all; they care about Twilight. They'll make you tell them what you did with her, and then they'll leave you all alone. Again.
Through her blurry vision, Twilight looked up to see Applejack rifling through a bureau drawer.
MOONSIDE The small equestrian figure moved through the growth of the Everfree Forest, her bright blue eyes rising and falling in the darkness with each step she took. Her skin clung close to her ribs; while she was not dangerously malnourished, she had less meat on her body than anypony would want. She carried in her mouth a crude handwoven basket filled partway with any herbs and grasses she could find.
As she neared the entrance to her den, loud noises ahead of her prompted her to pause. She set the basket on the ground and cautiously approached a clearing in the thick woods, trying her best to stay hidden and preparing to flee at any time. Near the entrance to her den were a mare and a very young filly. The filly was unfamiliar to her and frightened her, but she recognized the mare's violet fur. She had found the mare unconscious and suffering from a head injury, and she had somehow been persuaded to drag the mare back home with her to treat the wounds.
She realized the mare was looking at her, and she ducked her head into the undergrowth, her heart beating quickly. Had she been spotted? She dared to look again and discovered with relief that the mare and the filly were now talking to each other and had left her alone. She backed away slowly, lifting the basket in her jaw. She would come back later, and maybe by then the strangers would be gone. She turned and made her way back into the darkness of the forest but stopped when she heard a cry from the clearing. Daring to look, she saw the mare buckled over on the ground, the filly dancing around her, frantically.
She's still hurt, the figure realized. She hasn't healed. She needs help. Leave her, a voice in her head instructed. This was never your problem; she'll be fine. And then the blue-eyed figure saw a spark light up, just for a moment, casting light into the darkness. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the clearing. "Help me carry her," she instructed the filly, and she grabbed the mare's tail between her teeth.
The mare was not aware of any of this, as she was already elsewhere.
The Summer Sun Celebration was the most celebrated holiday in Canterlot. And by the looks of it, thought Twilight, Ponyville seemed to be taking it pretty seriously too. A large banner had been hung across the village square, proudly announcing, "Welcome, Princess Celestia."
Twilight scoffed. "They sure do love their princess, don't they, Madame?" she asked her traveling companion, a well-dressed orange earth pony that Twilight thought looked stunning in her velvet dress.
The earth pony looked back at Twilight confused. "I thought you enjoy the Summer Sun Celebration," she said.
Twilight shook her head. "I used to," she lied, "but not anymore." Watching the princess raise the sun still took her breath away. It was the most spectacular display of magical talent anypony could witness. As a filly watching the majestic performance, Twilight was filled with wonder and admiration, but Twilight liked to think she had grown since then. She now saw the spell for what it really was: just a spell. A spell anypony could pull off with enough raw power.
And hidden in the bag Madame currently had slung over her shoulder was the most powerful artifact to ever grace Equestria.
"In a few hours, the sun will rise," remarked Madame. "And this has been a rather uneventful night. I'm beginning to think we came all this way for nothing."
"Maybe," Twilight admitted. "I don't know what to want. If we were wrong about Nightmare Moon..."
"Suki," corrected Madame playfully.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "I never should have told you about that," she said bitterly, with a hint of playfulness. "If we were wrong about Nightmare Moon, then our planning is wasted. On the other hoof, though..."
Madame finished for her. "The world won't be destroyed."
"Shrouded in darkness, you mean. Although both possibilities are things I'd like to avoid. And thank you, by the way, for your support in all this."
Madame smiled as she looked at Twilight, the way a mother might look at a child. "My little protégé, why wouldn't I assist you? We make an excellent team."
They passed a table stacked with apple pies being sold by a white unicorn. "You hungry?" Twilight asked Madame.
"Not at all," said Madam, even though she was. "And I think I'll stay away from the village slop, anyway."
The unicorn looked up and cast a beaming smile at Twilight. "Good morning," she said cheerfully, and then her eyes fell on the earth pony behind Twilight. "Oh," she said flatly. "It's you."
Madame tried her best to look indifferent.
Twilight looked back and forth between them. "You know each other?"
The white unicorn answered. "Madame Orange, the rising entrepreneur of Manehattan? Is there anypony who doesn't recognize that atrocious cutie mark of hers? To what do we owe this pleasure, being graced with your appearance?"
Madame laughed, moving so that she was directly in the unicorn's face. "I came for the celebration," she said. "I hope you don't have a problem with that, and there isn't some law against us educated types ruining your quaint little backwards world."
The unicorn, while intimidated, didn't flinch. "Enjoy the party," she said with as much scorn as she could fit.
Twilight felt the sinking feeling in her stomach even before she knew where she was. The sudden transitions were jarring, and each jump left Twilight feeling tense and panicked. Worse, the dreams had all but destroyed her sense of time. They weren't normal dreams; rather, they felt like things that had happened a long time ago, but she had forgotten about them until now. Each time a memory unlocked, she berated herself for not remembering them before. Twilight knew for certain that somehow, the dreams were real, but she also knew that they couldn't be. It was her gut against her common sense, and like every other time the science-minded pony had to make a decision, common sense won out.
There was a logical explanation out there somewhere; Twilight just had to figure out what it was.
As the ceiling slowly stopping spinning above her, Twilight recognized the uneven cave walls. She was back in the underground burrow, and Pumpkin was looking down at her, the filly's face scrunched up with worry that quickly became relief when she saw her friend was okay.
"You made it!" said Pumpkin excitedly. "I mean, I knew you would, of course, never doubted you, but she said you were hurt, hurt bad, and by the way you shouldn't move, and drink lots of water, and I got you some, but don't drink it too quickly or you'll choke, and you should rest, and she'll be back soon to check on you, and she said to thank chestnuts or something." Pumpkin paused to inhale. "At least, I think that's what she said; it was kind of quiet, and I may have made some of it up."
"Did she say anything about not making noise?" asked Twilight, covering her ears with her forehooves.
Pumpkin put a hoof on her chin. "Nah," she said, "don't think so. Maybe. Probably."
A brown furry mass leaped onto Twilight's stomach from beyond her field of vision and stared down at her, rapidly making high-pitched squeaks.
"Oh, yeah," added Pumpkin. "That thing's back."
Twilight tried to stand, but her head began pounding, and a sick eruption of feeling in her stomach almost made her vomit. The one leg she had managed to lift gave way, and she resigned herself to lie on her back, staring at Pumpkin, the squirrel, and the ceiling.
The squirrel, seeing her attempts to move, put its paws down on her chest and shook its head back and forth, as if it was pantomiming, telling her to stay down.
"Am I crazy," Twilight asked Pumpkin, "or is the squirrel trying to communicate with me?"
The squirrel nodded vigorously.
"Who are you?" she asked the squirrel, and the squirrel leaped off her body and out of sight. Half a minute later, it returned carrying a large seed, which it deposited on the ground next to Twilight. Bending her head to get a better look, Twilight recognized the seed as a chestnut.
"Chestnut." She looked up at the squirrel. "Your name is Chestnut. You kind of remind me of another animal back home, but he was a rabbit named Angel."
Chestnut glared at Twilight angrily, as if she had crossed some sort of forbidden line. "Sorry," said Twilight. "I guess you don't like rabbits. But Chestnut and Pumpkin. You guys are making me hungry."
Pumpkin chuckled. "And speaking of names, miss, what's yours?"
"Twi-" began Twilight, before remembering that telling Pumpkin her name probably was a bad idea. She hesitated, trying to think of a cover and hoping Pumpkin hadn't heard her.
Pumpkin peered at Twilight expectantly. "Twi..." she said, awaiting the rest of it.
Twilight found inspiration as a name rose up to the surface of her mind. "Trixie," she said. "My name is Trixie." It wasn't the most pleasant sounding name, in Twilight's opinion, and it was one she certainly wasn't going to enjoy hearing, but Twilight was in the clear, so long as she remembered her name was Trixie now.
"Okay, Trixie," said Pumpkin, who had bought it completely. "Stay there and drink up. She'll be back soon."
"She? Who's she?" Twilight tried to say, but she was interrupted by a glass of water that Chestnut had shoved against her lips. Twilight stopped talking long enough to drink the whole thing. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until now. After she finished, she asked Pumpkin her question.
"She's some weird mare who lives out in these parts. She said she found you out by the swamps and dragged you back here."
Twilight remembered the figure she had seen before she had fainted and woken up here. Was that the mare that had saved her? The blue eyes in the darkness of the forest flashed through her mind. Was that her rescuer too?
"Oh," she said. "We should thank her if she comes back before we leave. Maybe we could write a note."
Pumpkin shook her head, and Chestnut mimicked her motions. "Why are you in such a hurry, Trixie?" the filly asked. "We're on an adventure, remember?"
Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but instead almost vomited again. As she tried to recover, she thought about Pumpkin's question. How could she explain that she didn't know what day it was, or how she had gotten here? There were holes in her memory, giant blank areas that refused to yield any information. Twilight was confused and lost in the unknown, and it terrified her. She needed familiarity. She needed comfort, and she knew she wasn't going to find either of those things in the Everfree Forest. The feeling of entrapment had been constricting itself around her since she had first awoken, and until she saw her friends, brash Rainbow Dash and sweet Applejack, serene Rarity and timid Fluttershy, exuberant Pinkie Pie and even little Spike, the feeling wasn't going to go away.
Instead of explaining these impossible facts, Twilight merely muttered, I need to get home," before the headache returned and made her close her eyes, moaning softly.
How had she ended up here, anyway? Twilight tried to think again, hoping that this time the memories would come more easily. Instead of trying to figure out what had happened last, she let her recent experiences flow over her one at a time, looking for one that didn't have a conclusion. She had celebrated Pinkie Pie's birthday party, an event nearly destroyed by Pinkie Pie herself. She'd been preparing to go the Grand Galloping Gala, but she didn't remember going. This narrowed down the possibilities to a span of a couple weeks, and she ran through each of them in her head. What had she done those days, before the Gala. Images flashed briefly. Studying for Academy exams, helping Fluttershy feed the chickens, writing her most recent report on friendship, receiving the letter from Zecora.
It was an unusual letter, one that just showed up in her mailbox one morning. No postage. She had asked Ditzy Doo, the local mailpony, about it, but the response she got, as best as she could decipher it, was that Ditzy hadn't delivered it. Twilight finally came to the conclusion that Zecora had dropped it in the box herself, in which case Twilight failed to understand why the zebra didn't just come and talk to her in person.
The text was short and simple. "Twilight. Please meet me today, by noon, at the old castle of the Royal Sisters in the Everfree Forest. This is urgent, but please come alone." Twilight was immediately suspicious, particularly of the part about coming alone, so she showed the letter to Rainbow Dash, a decision that turned out to be a huge mistake. Rainbow Dash, overcome by curiosity, insisted that the two of them go together to get to the bottom of the mystery.
That was the last thing Twilight remembered before she woke up, hurting and alone.
But you're in safe hands, Twilight reminded herself. Relatively, she added, remembering the dirty scalpels. As long as nopony tries to perform surgery on you, she decided, I think you'll be okay.
"How is it?" she asked Pumpkin. "Does it look that bad to you?"
Pumpkin nodded, slowly, and Twilight realized that she might not be the only pony in the room trying to keep her stomach contents down. "You've got this, gash," said Pumpkin as she traced a line down the side of her face to show Twilight just where it was. "It's not bleeding, but it looks awful. What happened to you?"
"You're guess is as good as mine," muttered Twilight softly. Maybe she had a concussion. That would explain the urge to vomit. Could concussions cause strange dreams? she wondered.
A clopping sound from the entrance disrupted her thoughts. Pumpkin turned around excitedly. "That's her," she said, and she bounded forward to greet their host. Twilight, still not wanting to risk moving, watched on from a distance and got her first look at her savior.
It was the dirtiest mare Twilight had ever seen. She looked like an incredibly frail earth pony. Dirt clung to her coat in such great quantities that Twilight could not even begin to guess what color the coat would be when clean, only that now it was the brown color of rabbit droppings, with a darker brown unkempt mane. The only bright part of the mare was her eyes, which shone a brilliant blue. The mare paused her approach as she spotted Pumpkin and took a few steps back. Something about the mare's behavior seemed oddly familiar to Twilight, and she looked vaguely recognizable in a way that Twilight couldn't place.
The mare walked a large circle around Pumpkin and approached Twilight. "You're lucky Chestnut found you," she said, and her voice was sad and grim. "He brought me to you, made me help you. I was scared." She opened her saddlebag and pulled out some bandages with her teeth. "I had to go into town to get some strips for your face," she explained. "I was hoping you'd still be out of it when I got back. You must be in a lot of pain after surviving an attack like that."
"Attack?" said Twilight, trying once again to sit up. As she moved, the mare flinched and almost fell over. She's scared of me, Twilight realized, and she politely laid down once again. After a few seconds the mare recovered and continued working.
"The shape of the wound, that's a claw mark," said the mare. "You can tell by the shape. But it's not like anything I've seen before. Too big for the little creatures, but too small for most of the predators. Rest now."
The mare turned around, and Twilight thought she saw something jagged sticking out of the mare's back. "Okay," the mare called up the entrance. "Come and get your food." A large number of creatures stampeded down the tunnel and immediately began feasting on the piles of lettuce and carrots that had been lying about. One of them, however, put off eating to stare disdainfully at the new ponies, and he hopped over to get a closer look.
He was an all-too-familiar white bunny rabbit. Twilight remembered why the mare looked so familiar.
It was impossible, of course. But she had to find out.
"Fluttershy?"
The mare turned around, and Twilight could now make out the pink in the tail, the three butterflies on the flank. There was no mistaking Fluttershy, even under all that grime.
"Fluttershy!" she repeated. "But you're, I mean, you don't..." She trailed off, pointing at where Fluttershy's wings were supposed to be. "You're an earth pony," she said at last. This was crazy, thought Twilight. This had to be a dream.
Fluttershy looked at where Twilight was pointing, confused. She scowled, as if she was trying to remember something from long ago. "Oh," she said, visibly ashamed. "I really am an earth pony, when you think about it," she said. "I talk to animals, I'm not good at flying. I belong here, in the ground, like earth ponies do. I was never supposed to be a Pegasus. That was all just a mistake."
Twilight didn't understand. "But that doesn't explain," she began. And then she once again saw the jagged points sticking out of Fluttershy's side. In the background, the dirty scalpels suddenly seemed to begin shining. Twilight froze in fear, the only part of her moving was her chest, which began heaving faster and faster. A sense of horror spread through her, and her imagination ran wild, showing her images she didn't want to see.
"Oh," she said weakly, before the food she had been trying so hard to keep down finally made its way to freedom.
Fluttershy was exhausted as she returned to her house, the sun setting and painting the world around her a soft and warm russet. She had spent the better part of the afternoon attempting to rebuild a groundhog burrow that had been flooded after the most recent rain. She made a mental note to talk to the Weather Agency at the next chance she got. The rain was important, Fluttershy knew, but there had to be a way to go about it that didn't involve evicting woodland creatures from their homes. A strong breeze whistled through the trees, and the noise seemed louder in the silent twilight hours.
There was something off about the weather, thought Fluttershy. Every part of the weather had to serve a purpose. The strong winds would just cause damage and scare little fillies, and there wasn't much reason for the flying crew to let it happen, not when the wind could be redirected to flow around Ponyville. At least, Fluttershy assumed it could; she'd left her weather training after it became clear that she didn't belong there, and she wasn't getting any less accident-prone. Another gust hit, and she closed her wings, which she had left unfurled without thinking. Some days she forgot she even had them until they got caught on something.
Fluttershy crossed the threshold, her eyes beginning to droop. As she removed the scarf she had been wearing, she considered what to do about Applejack and Twilight. Nothing, was the obvious answer. Whatever was going on between them would sort itself out in time, and Fluttershy had no desire to be a part of it. She stumbled onto her bed and was soon in a deep enough sleep that she could not to hear the moaning of the wind as it began to gain strength.
A rock hit her window. "Hey, Fluttershy!" called a voice, quieted by the walls of the house. After a minute, another rock hit, and the voice repeated itself. Fluttershy, dead to the rest of the world, didn't respond.
A few minutes passed, and then Fluttershy felt the warm touch of a hoof disturb her from her sleep. The hoof quickly became an entire equestrian body that wrapped Fluttershy in a suffocating hug. The pegasus pony opened her eyes and stared into a pair of large unmistakably blue eyes.
"Pinkie Pie!" she cried, confused and feeling quite violated.
Pinkie Pie began rubbing her face in Fluttershy's mane. "I never realized you were so soft," murmured Pinkie Pie happily, and Fluttershy pushed her friend away.
"What do you want?" asked Fluttershy. "How on Equestria did you even get in here?" She was fairly certain she had locked the door.
Pinkie Pie pounced on top of her friend again and brought her face inches away from Fluttershy's. She brought a hoof to her mouth and forced the air between her teeth, indicating silence. "Listen," she said.
Fluttershy tried, but all she could hear was the sound of wind through the trees. "I don't hear anything, Pinkie Pie," she said. "It's just a storm."
"No," cried Pinkie Pie. "It's not just a storm. Ever since it started, I've been waiting for my ears to go flat and my tail to frizz, but they haven't!"
Fluttershy didn't understand. "So?" she asked.
"So that's my Pinkie Sense for huge storms," explained Pinkie Pie. "And even though this one's a doozy, I'm not getting anything."
Fluttershy, still exhausted, turned away from Pinkie Pie. "Well your Pinkie Sense can't be going off all the time," she said, trying to spin the conversation in a way that was likely to get Pinkie Pie off of her. Their proximity was making her very uncomfortable.
Pinkie Pie shook her head. "But my Pinkie Sense is doing stuff," she said. "Just different stuff. My eyes are twitching and my hooves itch and that means that something really bad is about to happen and you're the only pony who can stop it."
Fluttershy tried her best to keep her voice level in the face of Pinkie's ridiculously specific Pinkie Sense. She had never exploded at one of her friends before, and she wanted to keep it that way. After all, if she exploded once, what would stop her from doing it again? "Pinkie Pie, you're so random," Fluttershy began to say, but she was interrupted by the sound of a wooden wheel impacting the side of the house. She quickly pulled herself upright, banging her head into Pinkie Pie's.
"The chickens!" she cried, seeming to not notice the collision. "Rainbow Dash was helping me patch up one of the walls in the coop, but we left a giant hole in it." She envisioned the chickens blowing away in the fierce wind. "Help me, Pinkie Pie. Please, I mean, if it's not too much trouble…"
Pinkie saluted her friend. "Okie Smokes, Fluttershy!" she said, and the pair ran out into the storm. To Fluttershy's surprise, there was still no rain, but the wind was even stronger than before. The ponies struggled against the wind until they reached the gate surrounding the coop, but as they turned the corner, the new direction of the wind bowled them over. Fluttershy gritted her teeth and stood up, pressing onward. Inside the coop, the chickens were running around crazily, startled by the storm. The pegasus grabbed one by the neck and carried it back into the house with Pinkie Pie following behind her, a second chicken in between her jaws. Pinkie Pie closed the door as they both released their chickens, panting heavily.
"Two down, twenty eight to go," breathed Fluttershy.
The task took the ponies almost an hour, but when they were finally done, Fluttershy's home was blanketed in the feathers of the thirty chickens that were now running freely throughout the house. Fluttershy watched as one of them leaped off the top of the stairs, descending erratically until it landed on a vase in the corner, knocking it over and smashing it.
"Is this it?" Fluttershy asked Pinkie Pie. "Are your Pinkie Senses done now?" The pegasus looked over at her friend and noticed that Pinkie's eyes were twitching painfully, and she was running one of her hooves maddeningly over the carpet.
"N-nuh-uh," said Pinkie Pie, and she began to stutter. "I-it's just g-getting w-w-worse," she said. "S-someth-thing really r-really b-b-bad is ab-bout to happen."
Fluttershy's wings began to flare in whatever amount of frustration she could manage, but they immediately dropped when she realized how terrified she was. As crazy as her friend was, Fluttershy still trusted Pinkie Pie. If Pinkie said that something bad was about to happen, that was enough to scare Fluttershy speechless.
Actually, Fluttershy realized, there were many things that could scare her speechless. But the visible terror in Pinkie's twitching eyes was worse than any of them.
"What do we do?" asked Fluttershy with trepidation.
Applejack dug through the contents of Twilight's bureau, looking for something, anything that would prove that Twilight was hiding something. After each drawer revealed nothing worthwhile, she carefully closed it and moved on to the next one. If Twilight and Spike were sleeping on the floor above her, Applejack wanted to make sure they didn't wake up.
The drawers were mostly empty, containing the clothes Twilight wore on special occasions, allowing Applejack to be able to quickly search through them. The earth pony quickly grew frustrated with the profitless ordeal.
Applejack opened the bottom drawer, and her composure changed instantly. She knew she had hit the jackpot. A dress had been thrown on top of a rectangular object in a failed attempt to hide it. Applejack pushed the dress aside and removed the book. It bore no title on its koskin cover, yet its edges hung limp where Applejack was not holding it. The book had seen much use; Applejack didn't hesitate to use it again.
The words in the book were written in a neat cursive script that Applejack recognized as Twilight's. This was her diary, Applejack realized. She skimmed through the pages until the dates became more recent. Most of the writing included technical details of Twilight's experiments or mundane personal details that Applejack didn't have much taste for, although she made a mental note to never let a certain stallion learn about a particularly steamy passage around the halfway mark. The passages continued until about a week before the present day, at which point they abruptly stopped. The last passage was as uninteresting as the rest of them, musing about Pinkie Pie's attitudes after their failed surprise party, and no amount of scrutiny by Applejack gave any clues as to what could cause the sudden change in Twilight's behavior.
Frustrated, Applejack kicked the book into the corner. She wondered where Rainbow Dash was, hoping the multicolored mare was taking the Cutie Mark Crusaders back to the farm and not getting them into more trouble. Applejack knew that for some reason or another, it wasn't going to be that easy. She turned to look over the rest of the room and discovered a teary eyed Twilight Sparkle staring at her.
"Horseapples…" muttered Applejack.
Seconds passed, and neither pony spoke. Then, when Applejack realized that for the first time since the fiasco began they were finally alone, she spoke.
"Well, Missy," she said. "Ah guess it's just you an' me here."
"What are you doing?" Twilight asked, and Applejack heard the hysteria in her voice.
"Ah want the truth," said Applejack coldly. "Ah won't take nothin' else, so just fess up, 'cuz nopony's here to judge you but me."
As she finished, Rainbow Dash stuck her head through the ceiling. "There's nothing in the floorboards," she announced, before the thin wooden ceiling gave way and she tumbled to the floor. Seconds later, Pinkie Pie kicked open the door leading to the library, and Fluttershy awkwardly stumbled in behind her, her head hung low.
"Um, excuse me, sorry," mumbled Fluttershy. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
Applejack glared at Fluttershy and bared her teeth. "'Twilight' here's fixin to spill the beans, so back off. I'm not lettin' her get away."
Fluttershy squeaked and backed into the corner.
"Applejack," said Pinkie, with a cautionary tone, "You'd know what Rarity would say if she were here."
"Well she ain't, is she?" snapped Applejack. "And ah'm not gonna to stop until ah get answers. Twilight's been lying to us. In fact, ah don't even believe she's really her. Ah ain't even goin' to call her Twilight no more." She began to advance toward the purple mare threateningly.
Rainbow Dash watched the encounter, filled with uncertainty and mixed feelings. Applejack had become a truly frightening force, and Rainbow doubted that a single pony there wasn't completely terrified. Her pulse increased rapidly, and she felt as if her heart was about to jump out of her throat. She looked at Twilight nervously, tears now pooling around the unicorn's eyes.
Then came the spark. It was a feeling Rainbow had felt only a couple times before in the past. The room lit up around her, and Twilight was no longer Twilight. In her place sat Fluttershy, or what Fluttershy looked like when she was younger. Applejack had been replaced by one of the jock ponies from Flight School, the brown pegasus with the basketball cutie mark. The image only lasted a second, and when it faded, Rainbow Dash knew exactly what to do.
"No," she said sternly, stepping between Applejack and Twilight. "I'm not going to let you hurt her."
"Outta the way, Rainbow Dash," said Applejack, the anger in her voice rising. "Ah'm tellin' you, this ain't Twilight."
"Prove it."
Applejack froze. It was a question she should have known was going to be asked, but it didn't prepare her for when it actually was. "Pardon?" she said, her voice now quieter and much higher.
"You heard me," said Rainbow Dash, walking forward until her face was directly in front of Applejack's. "Prove it. Really, Applejack, I don't know what's gotten into you these past few days, but I'm not going to stand back and make Twilight deal with your craziness."
Applejack attempted to rush past Rainbow, but the strong pegasus barely managed to hold her back. "Why don't y'all trust me?" screeched Applejack.
Pinkie Pie bounded forward, joining Rainbow Dash. "W-why won't you trust Twilight? What's she d-done?" she said, still stuttering a bit.
"Well..." Applejack tried to think of an answer.
"Applejack," whinnied Pinkie Pie. "You need to listen to your f-friends. Otherwise you can lose them, f-forever."
"But that's what ah'm trying to say!" screamed Applejack, frustrated.
"No, you're not," said Rainbow Dash. "The only pony you're willing to listen to is yourself."
Applejack wanted to protest. She wanted to knock some sense into her friends, literally if she had to. She needed them to see things the way she saw them. But after she opened her mouth, she closed it again. What could she say? Nothing she wanted to say would convince them, but it took her a moment of silence to realize why. It wasn't evidence. Nothing she said, or could say, would ever hold up in a formal argument. She couldn't prove that Twilight was hiding something. It was just something she knew. Now, feeling weighed down by Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash's accusatory stares, Applejack asked a question she hadn't even considered before then.
What if she was wrong? What if Twilight was acting strange because she was hurt or upset, and all Applejack was doing was yelling and making things worse? Applejack repeated the encounter in her head, trying to look at things from Twilight's perspective, and suddenly she felt like a monster. She hung her head, trying desperately not to look at anypony.
"Ah'm sorry, Dashie" she murmured softly.
Rainbow Dash's expression didn't change. "I'm not the pony you need to be apologizing to, Applejack," she said.
Applejack knew it. She raised her head and looked across the room at Twilight. The unicorn was heaving quickly, scared out of her mind. Was she really that bad? Applejack wondered. She stood slowly and cautiously approached her friend. "Look here, sugarcube," she said, and Twilight flinched. "I don't mean no harm," she continued. "ah never did. I just want you to know that you've got friends that'll try to help you. And we'll stand by you, no matter what."
Twilight looked into Applejack's eyes, suspicious. "No matter what?" she echoed.
Applejack nodded. "Yup, no matter what. Ah meant well, sugarcube, but ah guess ah got a little lost along the way. Ah stopped thinking about you. And nopony can decide what's best for her friends, especially if she doesn't even listen to them. And for that ah'm really, truly sorry."
The storm that had been fiercely blowing outside calmed a little.
Applejack turned away from everypony else in the room, so none of them could see the smirk that had appeared on her face. It was the widest she had smiled all week. "Ah guess ah learned my lesson, Twilight," she said, her voice sounding genuinely remorseful. Then she lifted her head and turned, pretending she had just been struck with a bright idea. "Ya know, you could include this in yer next friendship report!"
"See?" squealed Pinkie Pie as she began hopping up and down. "Now we're friends again, like Odysseus and Achilles."
"Who?" said Owlowiscious, having awoken from his perch.
"That... could be a good idea," said Twilight, struggling to find the right words to say in the aftermath.
Applejack stood tall, a proud grin plastered onto her face. "In fact," she suggested, "why don't ya write it right now?"
"Is now really a good time?" asked Rainbow Dash skeptically.
"You shouldn't push her like that," said Fluttershy, but she was too quiet for any of the other ponies to hear her.
Pinkie Pie frowned, beginning to understand what Applejack was getting at. Applejack's behavior left a bad taste in her mouth, but she kept quiet, curious to see what would happen next.
Twilight stared blankly at Applejack, and her breathing began to quicken again. Outside, the storm increased in intensity. "Now?" she asked.
Applejack nodded. "Of course now," she said. "You should do it while it's still fresh in our minds." She paused and leaned inward. "Unless, of course, ya don't know how."
"Well?" said Applejack, running out of patience. "Ya gonna write the letter or ain't ya?"
"I'll do it," said Twilight, her voice panicked. "I just need a quill and paper, right?" She used her horn to lift a blank parchment and a quill from the desk. "Let's see. 'Today I learned that a true friend will always support you.'"
She didn't get a chance to write a second sentence before Applejack pushed the paper away from her. "Now hold on, Twilight," she said. "Don't you need to address it first?"
Twilight swallowed. "Address?" she stuttered.
"Yeah, you silly filly," interjected Pinkie Pie. "Address means you write the name of the pony you're sending it to."
"I know what it means," said Twilight resentfully. She raised the quill to the paper again, but didn't write. She stared at the paper nervously, then at Applejack, then at the paper again. Beginning to sweat, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think of a way out.
"Here's a hint," said Applejack, growing tired. "She more or less raised you."
Taking a guess, Twilight began writing. "Dear Mom," she said, dictating as she wrote.
Applejack grabbed the paper with her teeth and threw it to the ground. "Wrong answer," she said. She pushed her face up against Twilight, forcing the smaller unicorn back. "Who. Are. You?" she asked, saying each word with as much anger as she could muster. "Because you sure as hay ain't Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight trembled, but this time Applejack felt little remorse. "Answer me," Applejack ordered.
The unicorn looked up into the earth pony's green eyes. "I am Twilight Sparkle," she said, but the voice was lacking resolve, almost uncertain of its own conviction. "I swear to you, I'm Twilight."
"Liar," spat Applejack, and behind her a book toppled off the shelf and hit the floor. Nopony save Fluttershy noticed it.
"Applejack," Fluttershy cautioned, but she was again unheard.
"I'm not her," said Twilight. "But I am Twilight. Just not your Twilight."
"And what in tarnation is that supposed to mean?"
Outside, lightning flashed. Pinkie Pie felt a light breeze against her fur, and she looked for the open window.
"What did you do with the real Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked, finally convinced.
Twilight shook her head. "I think," she began, but she couldn't finish. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed. A burning sensation lit up her gut, a familiar feeling she knew to well. "I think," she said again, struggling to get the words out. "I think you should go away. Please."
Applejack shook her head. "That ain't happening. So spill. You still look like Twilight, and I don't want to mess up that familiar face. But I will, for her."
"No," Twilight breathed as Applejack and Rainbow Dash forced her into the corner. She felt as if she was suffocating. "Please."
"Um... guys?" said Pinkie Pie, as a vase behind her melted into slag. The wind was stronger now, tangling Pinkie Pie's mane into knots. Frames on the wall began to swing violently. "Guys," she shouted, although she only succeeded in catching Fluttershy's attention. "All the doors and windows are closed, so where's the wind from?"
Applejack, undeterred, grabbed Twilight on the shoulder. The sharp sound of electric discharge lanced into everypony's ears, and a second later, Applejack was dazed and head-first on the floor on the other side of the room.
Twilight began to levitate off of the ground, the wind curling around her, forming a protective sphere that flashed every color of the rainbow. Her horn began to emit a blinding light that rode on the air currents and leaped around the room. Furniture disappeared, or shrunk, or turned into rabbits.
Applejack struggled to her hooves. "Twilight, stop that!" she called.
Twilight wanted to. It was painful to endure, the magic forcing its way out through every orifice. Her eyes squeezed shut, and when they reopened they glowed an intense violet that brought agony to her eyelids.
Applejack tried to approach Twilight again, but was tossed against the back wall the instant she raised a hoof. A sickening crack resounded through the room, and Applejack didn't try to stand again.
The other ponies backed up slowly, aided by the harsh wind that was forcing them away from Twilight. Rainbow Dash began to feel incredibly hot underneath her mane. A bolt of lightening leaped from Twilight's horn, striking a doorknob and letting off a shower of sparks.
Twilight resigned and hung her head, no longer trying to fight the energy that was rippling across her body. She didn't want this to happen, but there was nothing she could do. The howling wind drowned out every sound, and Twilight felt herself sinking into a murky blackness. Then, one noise managed to break through the maelstrom, and she heard it clearly.
"Twilight."
She struggled to focus her eyes, to see what was going on around her. To her complete shock, while Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were forced up against the wall, trying to survive the winds that were now beginning to topple bookshelves and fling them in any direction, Fluttershy was anchored. Her body bent forward and her wings folded inward as tightly as they could, Fluttershy was the only static element of the shifting chaos that was once the library.
"Twilight," she said again, not shouting but no longer in her usual whimper. "You don't have to do this."
Twilight tried to figure out what to do, how to explain that Fluttershy was wrong, that whatever happened was going to happen. She opened her mouth to talk, but the only sounds she made were screams.
A change had settled over Fluttershy. Hearing the scream, the pegasus flinched, but she then strengthened her resolve and pushed against the wind. She no longer seemed afraid; her fear had been replaced with a serene calmness. Twilight looked into Fluttershy's eyes and saw the empathy within them.
"You can stop this," said Fluttershy, taking another step forward. "If you have enough power to do this, you have enough to turn it off."
Twilight scowled, tears streaming down her face. She never understood ponies who would risk themselves for ponies like her. She didn't deserve their compassion. She was worthless, an outcast, a mistake. Everything and everypony she touched turned to ashes, in some cases literally, even when they could have avoided it simply by walking away. Twilight looked at Fluttershy again, seeing another pony within her, the last pony who had flown too close to the sun and gotten burnt. The memory of the other pony, the golden-maned pegasus, burned brightly in her mind, and Twilight knew it would kill her to watch it happen all over again.
Fluttershy, having closed the distance, wrapped Twilight in a hug. "You can do this," she said, whispering words of encouragement. "It's okay now. Everything's going to be okay." Twilight could feel Fluttershy's muscles as they tensed and locked up. The electricity was now arcing directly between them, and their pain was shared. Yet Fluttershy refused to let go or make even the quietest sound to show that she was hurting. Instead she only whispered. "I'm here for you. Everything will be okay." Fluttershy wiped a tear off of Twilight's face and smiled. "Feel free to cry on my shoulder, alright?"
Twilight buried her muzzle in Fluttershy's mane and cried harder than she ever had in her life.
The storm began to die down, and Pinkie stopped shivering.
Rainbow Dash approached the embracing ponies, confused and feeling somewhat scornful towards Fluttershy's treacherous behavior. "Fluttershy, what are you..." she began, but she froze when she saw Fluttershy narrow her eyes, the beginning of a stare.
"No," said Fluttershy, the assertion in her voice unusual and unsettling for Rainbow Dash to hear. Then it softened. "Can you check on Applejack, please?" Rainbow nodded silently and trotted over to Applejack, who was beginning to moan and lift her head.
"What in blazes," muttered Applejack as she tried to understand what had happened to her. She tried to stand, but cried out at a sharp pain in one of her hind legs.
"Thank Celestia," Rainbow Dash breathed. "I think she's okay," she called to the rest of the ponies. "Well, all things considered."
Pinkie Pie galloped toward Fluttershy before bouncing in circles around her. "You did it!" she cried. "You did it!"
"Did what?" asked Applejack, still somewhat dazed.
"Fluttershy saved Ponyville!" shouted Pinkie Pie, celebratorily and emphatically. "I was giving Gummy a bath when my eyes started twitching and hooves started itching and I started getting shivery all over, like when I eat to much candy only I hadn't eaten any candy in at least an hour so I went to see Fluttershy because I knew it was my Pinkie Pie sense saying something really bad was about to happen to Ponyville and Fluttershy was the only pony who could stop it in time even though she's not very tough but I told her this and I told her that it was here because I just knew that Twilight would be involved just like she always is whenever my Pinkie Pie sense is tingling and I was right again and Twilight started to go *WHOOSH* and then Fluttershy hugged her because that's what she does and she's so nice to everypony and then everything went back to normal and I was thinking about how maybe I could throw another party to cheer everypony up like the surprise one we were going to do for Twilight- sorry, Twilight- but we couldn't because she wasn't home and we didn't know why but that was okay because I still had leftover cupcakes and streamers and that banner that was for Rainbow Dash until I erased part of it and put Twilight's name in which looks kind of funny because it's longer to write so it didn't really fit on the banner but nopony noticed so I figured it was okay." She paused and inhaled for ten seconds. "And then Fluttershy saved Ponyville!" she shouted.
Twilight had stopped following the speech after the first occurrence of the words "Pinkie Pie Sense."
"Pinkie Sense?" she asked Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "It's a thing," she said.
"But that doesn't..." began Twilight.
Rainbow cut her off. "Don't start this again," she muttered. "It was bad enough the first time."
Applejack frowned. "Where's Apple Bloom?" she asked Rainbow Dash.
"Upstairs, huddled in a little wooden box with her friends. Some ponies don't know how to handle a storm."
Applejack smiled, relieved that her sister hadn't been caught in the storm, while Fluttershy stared into Twilight's familiar, alien eyes, trying to figure out what to do next.
"You don't have to do this," said Twilight as Fluttershy helped her across the threshold and into the house.
"What else could I do?" asked Fluttershy. "I think the others are going to start being a little nicer to you, but having you sleep in Twilight's house was where Applejack drew the line."
Twilight didn't blame her. "I mean, I can find some other place to spend the night," she said.
"You need to be comfortable," said Fluttershy. "And I think Applejack wants you under a watchful eye." As she spoke, Angel hopped onto the table from his bed, pointing two claws first at his own eyes and then at Twilight's.
Twilight tried to laugh, but found she couldn't. The sight of Applejack being so abusive and cruel made Twilight never want to laugh again. It wasn't every day that a pony got attacked by her only friend. Angel hopped onto Twilight's back, but she did nothing to force the rabbit off.
"There's only one bed," explained Fluttershy. "Upstairs, on the right. I can sleep on the couch."
"No." That was the one service Twilight could give, her one reparation, even though she knew it wouldn't be enough. "I've already stolen one life. I'm not going to start taking yours. I'll take the couch, and that's that."
Fluttershy nodded, understanding. She started up the staircase, but stopped when she heard Twilight's voice calling to her.
"One question," said Twilight. "Her and Applejack. Were they good friends?"
"I guess so," said Fluttershy. "I don't know about Twilight; she was always so private. But Applejack cared about her a lot."
Twilight smiled, a small bit of warmth and hope flowing into her. "Good night, then," she said.
"Good night," repeated Fluttershy. She entered her bedroom and realized that sleeping in her own bed wasn't going to work, since it was now inhabited by two and a half dozen sleeping chickens. She wandered back out into the hall and saw that Twilight hadn't taken the couch but instead had made a nest on the rug with a sheet. Feeling sorry for the stranger that looked like her friend, Fluttershy descended the stairs and laid down beside her.
"I thought you hated me," said Twilight coldly.
Fluttershy was shocked for a moment, and heart melted in pity. "Hate is a strong word," she said softly.
"No it's not." said Twilight. "If it was, it wouldn't be used so often. Now answer, do you hate me?"
Fluttershy was tempted to answer immediately, but she stopped herself. If Twilight wanted an honest, heartfelt answer, she would get one. "I don't know," Fluttershy admitted at last. "You've done some really bad things. I'm scared to think of what you did with Twilight. But I also know that tomorrow we're going to work together to get her back."
"Do they hate me?" Twilight asked.
"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," said Fluttershy.
Twilight, satisfied by this answer, fell asleep.
Before Fluttershy joined her, she noticed that the weather outside was calmer than she had ever seen before in Ponyville.
The next morning, Rarity was preparing to open up her shop when she heard a knock at her door. Rainbow Dash was waiting anxiously when she opened it. "Everypony's meeting at the library," she explained curtly before she took Rarity around the neck and dragged her out of the shop. "Shop can wait," she said when Rarity tried to protest.
Rarity followed her across the Ponyville to the back entrance of the library. As they entered, she saw the mess that had been left by the previous night's encounter. Shelves were overturned and entire tables were on their sides. Fluttershy was comforting an incredibly sobered Twilight while Pinkie Pie adjusted a cast on Applejack's leg.
Rarity tried to piece together what had happened, but couldn't. "Goodness, what is this?" she asked Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow looked at Rarity. "It's the end of the beginning," she said.
Pumpkin was waiting for Twilight anxiously when she climbed out of the burrow, struggling beneath the weight of the homemade saddlebag. When the purple unicorn was finally out of the earth, the filly began jumping, impatient and ready to move.
"Hold your horses," muttered Twilight. "I told you I would take you home. Leaping around like this isn't going to make it happen any faster."
Pumpkin dug her hooves into the earth in irritation. "I know," she groaned. "But we're finally getting a move on, and even then you're slow."
Pumpkin had been ready to leave not long after Twilight had met Fluttershy, but Twilight had refused to let Pumpkin go off into the Everfree Forest on her own. Fortunately, Fluttershy had somehow managed to get Pumpkin to stay, as Twilight would have been unable to force the issue herself.
"I mean, my mum's probably scared to death," said Pumpkin. "You made me stay a whole day. A whole day! What if she thinks I've been eaten by a manaco or something?"
The thought of Pumpkin's poor mother hadn't really occurred to Twilight. "I'll explain everything to her, I promise," said Twilight. "And you're lucky. Fluttershy really wanted me to rest for two days before I left. I managed to convince her I'd be fine with one."
Fluttershy. Something was very wrong with her. That much was apparent, even for somepony who didn't know her. But after their first encounter, during their second conversation, Twilight realized just how bad her condition was.
"I'm really sorry to bring this up again," Twilight had said when she and Fluttershy were alone in the burrow. "But how long have your wings been, you know?" She didn't want to finish, but what she had said should have been clear enough.
"It's fine," was Fluttershy's reply. "It doesn't bother me that much anymore. They don't hurt. But they've been like that as long as I can remember, as long as I've been living here, perhaps."
Something about Fluttershy's behavior had unsettled Twilight. The pegasus seemed nervous around her, even though they were good friends. Twilight slowly realized that Fluttershy had never referred to her by name.
"Fluttershy," she had asked, scared of the answer. "Do you know who I am?"
The silence that followed told Twilight everything she needed. Fluttershy didn't remember her. From the conversation that followed, it became clear that she didn't remember Pinkie Pie either. Or Applejack. It was as if all of her memories had been wiped clean, and none of their adventures together had ever happened.
Now, as Twilight and Pumpkin began their journey through the woods, Fluttershy's health was the only thing on Twilight's mind. "We need to get a doctor out here," she told Pumpkin. "First thing when we get back to Ponyville."
"Why don't you ask Fluttershy?" asked Pumpkin. "She patched you up nice enough."
"I mean, a doctor for Fluttershy," explained Twilight. "She doesn't remember who I am. There's something in her head, like some kind of mad horse disease, and whatever it is that's got her acting like this is making her not remember things she really should know."
"Oh," said Pumpkin, and both ponies stopped talking.
The only way Twilight could measure time was by evaluating her energy. Each step made her a little more exhausted.
After a while, Pumpkin broke the silence. "Are you sure we're going the right way?" she asked.
"Of course," said Twilight. "Fluttershy showed me which way to go. Why, don't you trust Fluttershy?"
"Not really," said Pumpkin, and Twilight realized that she might agree with the filly's decision.
"Why can't you use your adventurer skills to get out of here? Retracing your steps, maybe?" Twilight asked Pumpkin, recalling their first meeting.
"'Cuz," said Pumpkin. "Adventures are always going into jungles, to find treasure and stuff like that. You never see an adventurer leaving a jungle, do you?" She looked up at Twilight, who was straining under the weight of the saddlebag. "You positive you don't want any help with that?" she asked.
"Nope," said Twilight, determined. "A good part of it is food, anyway. I just don't think Fluttershy wanted us to be completely unprepared.
"I helped," said Pumpkin, who was now on Twilight's back and eating salad out of the bag. Twilight glanced over to where the filly had been standing a moment ago, wondering how she could have possibly moved so quickly.
Pumpkin sprung off of Twilight's back, and the saddlebag felt noticeably lighter. She begin jumping in circles around Twilight.
"Did you eat all of that?" Twilight asked the filly.
Pumpkin nodded. "All gone."
"Well then, you'd better slow down, or else you're going to get a stomachache, or you'll get all worn out," warned Twilight.
Pumpkin was still bouncing when Twilight collapsed, all of her energy gone.
"Trixie," moaned Pumpkin, prodding her, and Twilight mentally berated herself for not coming up with a more bearable name to use. "Trixie, we're almost there."
"I don't care," said Twilight, who had found the dirt road surprisingly comfortable. Then the words registered. "Really?" she asked, trying to lift her head. The trees had gotten noticeably thinner since they had started, but Twilight hadn't been willing to get her hopes up. "How do you know?" she asked.
"Easy. I can see the light."
Twilight looked around. "Lights?" she said. "Where?"
Pumpkin looked at Twilight sternly. "Now you're just foaling with me," she said. "I don't like bein' foaled. Up there, in the sky."
Twilight looked up and saw it. A single bright light hovering above Ponyville. She might have thought it was a star, but it was far too bright. Nothing else in the sky came close to matching it. Then, to her amazement, the light moved. It swung sharply downward beneath the canopy before rising up again, somewhat to the right.
"What is it?" asked Twilight, transfixed.
Pumpkin rolled her eyes. "It's the Ponyville light. Honestly 'tain't nothing too special. You've never seen it before, though? What are ya, nocturnal?"
"Nocturnal?" echoed Twilight.
"Yeah. The light only comes out during the day. It's like the sun, but smaller."
Twilight was still confused. "This is daytime?" she asked. If they were really close to the edge of the forest, the lighting shouldn't still be pitch-black.
"Duh. 'Cuz of the light. That's how you tell the night from day."
It took Twilight a few seconds to realize that Pumpkin was probably playing some kind of prank on her. The filly must have seen the light and decided to have fun with it. "Well, you got me," said Twilight, and Pumpkin stared at her, not comprehending. "Maybe we should just take you back to your mom now," she added, trying to give Pumpkin a chance to move past the joke without any embarrassment.
Ten minutes of trotting later, a very familiar building came into view on the very fringe of Ponyville.
"This is where you live?" asked Twilight, shocked.
Pumpkin smiled, proud to be home. "Yup!" she said. "Welcome to Sweet Apple Acres."
The barn stood majestically in front of the sprawling fields; there was no mistaking the farm. Yet something put Twilight on edge, something that she couldn't place. Actually, Twilight mused, that feeling of familiarity overlaying a sense of the bizarre was beginning to become a recurring theme in Twilight's struggles. She felt like there was always something in the corner of her eye, something just beyond her comprehension, and it created a sense of dread, a pit in the bottom of her stomach.
"You live here?" said Twilight, trying desperately to fit together the pieces of the puzzle.
Pumpkin stared at her again. "That's what I said."
"But I've never seen you here before."
"And I've never seen you before, period," said Pumpkin. "What's your point?"
"I thought only Applejack lived here, with Granny Smith and Big Macintosh," said Twilight.
Pumpkin shrugged. "Beats me," she said. "There were lots of ponies living on the farm when Gramps and Mum and Dad moved in." She began sprinting down the road toward the large entrance gate without checking to see if Twilight was following her.
Twilight followed slowly, her face furrowed into a frown and her eyes looking at the ground. She wondered how long she had been gone. Was Pumpkin some relative of Applejack's?
As Twilight examined her surroundings, the differences began to compound. Pumpkin was right; there were many ponies on the farm. Twilight saw mostly glimpses of them, through windows or in the distance, but she could easily count past the four residents of the farm she knew, the fourth being Apple Bloom, whom Twilight had accidentally skipped over in her confusion. Some of the buildings seemed old and worn down, including a shed that Twilight remembered had been rebuilt a couple months ago; she had helped.
Twilight tried to figure out why there were so many other ponies working, and according to Pumpkin, living on the farm. The Summer Sun celebration was still a few months away. Was it apple harvesting season? Twilight couldn't remember, so she looked out into the apple orchard and realized what had looked so wrong with the orchard: a distinct lack of trees.
There were some apple trees; the fields weren't completely barren. Yet large swaths of grass littered the farm, and some sections were growing other plants, like potatoes and pumpkins.
Twilight could only think of one explanation for the sudden changes. A lot of time must have passed since the last time she had seen the farm. She reached up and touched the bandages on her face. Maybe the injuries and concussion had caused some memory loss. That would explain why everything seemed so disjointed, why the day Twilight had gone into the forest with Rainbow Dash seemed so distant. The distorted memories could be her mind trying to repair itself. Twilight wasn't a neurologist, but she decided that this was a possible explanation, and seeing as she couldn't think of a better one, Occam's Razor said it was probably correct.
She needed a calendar. She was about to try and catch up to Pumpkin to ask her the date when a shrill voice calling Pumpkin's name interrupted her thoughts and made both ponies freeze. Pumpkin turned and leaped even higher than normal when she saw who was speaking to them.
"Rarity!" she cried, and she dashed between Twilight's legs and out of sight. Twilight tried to track Pumpkin as the filly moved but only ended up viewing the now upside-down world between her forelegs.
A white earth pony wearing a Stetson looked at Twilight briefly in confusion before turning her attention to the bouncing filly. She bit down on Pumpkin's ear, holding her in place. "Settle down, now," she instructed between clenched teeth. Pumpkin's leaps became smaller until she was vibrating slowly on the ground. The white pony let go and promptly spit onto the ground. "Better," she said. "But you taste terrible. What have you been up to? Your mother is worried sick." Before Pumpkin could answer, the white pony looked back at Twilight. "And who's the mare who looks like she lost a fight to an owl-bear?"
Twilight self-consciously rubbed the bandage, wishing she would stop being reminded of it. "Rarity?" she said quietly, trying to wrap her head around this new piece of information.
Rarity sighed. "Go take a bath," she told Pumpkin. "I'll let your kin know you're safe." She swatted Pumpkin on the rump with her tail, and Pumpkin took off toward the house. "You. With me," Rarity ordered Twilight, and she complied. "What's your name?" Rarity asked, once the gap had been closed.
The voice did sound like Rarity's, thought Twilight. It wasn't something that she would have figured out purely by listening, but since she knew it was supposed to be Rarity, she could see the resemblance. Rather, it sounded like a hybrid between Rarity's normal voice and Applejack's, like a cowpony that chose her words carefully. She had both Rarity's elegance and Applejack's softness and honesty. "Rarity?" Twilight repeated, not knowing what else to do.
Rarity shook her head. "No, that's me. I'm asking who you are."
Yet the pony standing before her looking intimidating couldn't be Rarity, thought Twilight. She couldn't see the cutie mark from this angle, but this "Rarity" didn't have a horn. Then Twilight remembered Fluttershy, her wings broken off, the stubs standing out at an angle, and Twilight almost threw up again. She forced herself to look up at Rarity, the other pony's blue eyes examining her suspiciously. The dream of Rarity selling apples returned, and Twilight tried to remember if the dream-Rarity had a horn.
"You," began Twilight, "Your, you don't, I mean, what happened to your..." Unable to get the words across, she began frantically gesturing to the horn on her own forehead.
Rarity rolled her eyes, annoyed by their newest guest. "You mean this?" she asked, pushing up the brim on her Stetson, revealing the horn underneath.
Twilight breathed a giant sigh of relief. "Thank Celestia," she breathed.
Rarity eyed Twilight no longer with suspicion but with confusion and concern. "Are you all right?" she asked. "You're the first pony that's asked to see my horn before." Realizing what she had just said, her face flushed with embarrassment. "There were probably a dozen better ways to word that," she muttered. Desperate to move on, she asked Twilight, "Would you like to come inside for a moment? Those bandages look atrocious. We should change them out, and you look like you could use something to eat."
Twilight nodded eagerly, thankful for Rarity's generosity. She still had many questions running through her, and one of them was more important than the rest. Based on Rarity's behavior, however, Twilight was afraid that she already knew the answer.
Do you recognize me?
Five minutes later, Twilight was sitting at a small circular table across from Rarity, sipping some cold apple cider. They were in a back room of the main building, a room the farm had decided to use as a combined food storage and tool shed.
"So," said Rarity, leaning forward. "Who did you say you were again?"
Twilight felt crushed. Rarity didn't remember who she was either. She answered honestly, not wanting to hide anything from her friend, even if the friend didn't know her.
"Twilight Sparkle," repeated Rarity slowly, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Well, I guess that explains quite a bit. Except what you were doing with Pumpkin."
"I found her in the forest. I wasn't going to eat her soul or anything!" exclaimed Twilight, getting defensive. To her surprise, Rarity began laughing. Twilight sat still dumbfounded.
"Darling," laughed Rarity, "you hardly seem like the type to eat anypony's soul. Even if that were possible."
"I've been trying to figure you out, Twilight," continued Rarity. "Who you are, that sort of thing. It's easy to figure out what you're not. For example, I know you don't eat souls. But you're clueless enough to listen to a little filly on matters you should already be well-aware of. Namely, yourself. Be honest with me, Twilight. What are you doing here?"
Twilight finished the cider. She leaned in to match Rarity. "I think that there's something wrong with me," she confessed.
Rarity started laughing again. "Oh, I doubt there's any argument against that," she said. Noticing Twilight's empty cup, she added, "Sorry, darling. I wish I could give you more, but everything here's strictly rationed. They can't notice anything's gone missing."
"Rationed?" The word surprised Twilight. "But this is the Sweet Apple Acres. Half the food in Ponyville comes out of here."
Rarity sighed again, and her face once again showed worry. "That may have been true, before the Darkness. Now it's all we can do to get enough to eat."
"The Darkness?" asked Twilight, who hadn't heard anything after that.
Rarity raised an eyebrow. "You really are behind the times, aren't you, Darling? Look outside. It's the middle of the day, if you still believe in telling them apart. The sun doesn't rise anymore. It hasn't, not since the Summer Sun Celebration two years ago. And food doesn't grow without sunlight. The whole extended Apple family's moved here to work together, to make what we can, even if it's barely enough to get through. We've got the Apples, the Melons, and the Pumpkins, all under one roof."
Twilight stopped breathing. "That's impossible," she said. "We stopped it. We did. Both of us. Together."
Rarity shook her head and looked at Twilight sadly. "I don't know what you're going on about, Twilight. I'd remember something like that, I think. And the two of us have never been acquainted before today."
Something Rarity had said before began to bother Twilight, and she figured now would be a good time to ask. "Which one are you?" she asked.
Rarity didn't understand. "Excuse me?" she said.
"The Apples, the Melons, and the Pumpkins. Which one are you?"
"Oh, I'm nothing yet," said Rarity, and a small mischievous smile spread across her lips. "I just work here. And I've started living here too. I'm not a blood relative, but I'm still part of the big family. At least, they treat me like I am, and I like it that way." She picked up Twilight's plate and carried it to a sink. "Now, let's get those bandages replaced."
That evening, Rarity was sitting in a rocking chair behind the house, watching Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tussle on the ground over a ball. The game was a sport of Apple Bloom's creation, and she would often force the other fillies on the farm to play it with her when she wasn't trying to find her special talent with her friends.
Rarity watched as Apple Bloom gained control of the ball and bucked it toward Pumpkin, who shot it past Sweetie Belle and into the goal. What she wouldn't give to be that young again, without a care, not understanding the hardships she would have to endure to make a living.
Today had been a relatively lax day, but tomorrow she would have to start uprooting some of the potato plants to see which ones had become infected with a rather nasty worm. It would be a lot of hard work, and Rarity figured she could manage. She wasn't averse to labor like she had been as a filly, and it paid well. She could feel the muscles in her chest and couldn't imagine what it would be like to live without them. She also couldn't forget the numerous lessons discipline had taught her. She recited the Wayfarer's Creed silently to herself.
Never do by horn what can be done by hoof. Patience, endurance, and the value of work can't be taught with magic.
It had taken Rarity far too long to realize this, and so she had made the promise with herself. Nopony else was enforcing it but her; maybe that's why she found it so compelling. If she broke it, it would become meaningless, and she had lived by it far too long to risk sacrificing its meaning.
After she had changed Twilight's bandages, it had become apparent that the purple unicorn still hadn't recovered enough to be out of bed. She was easily fatigued and had trouble maintaining focus during the procedure, and so she gave up her bed to Twilight. After all, it wasn't like she used it that much now.
Pumpkin's mother had approached her soon afterward, anxious to meet the stranger that had rescued her daughter. That would have to happen tomorrow too.
Who was Twilight Sparkle? Rarity had heard the legends; so had every pony, but she'd never given them much credit. The real Twilight had turned out to be a confused, disoriented mess, and Rarity had taken pity on her. She only hoped the rest of the farm would react the same way when they learned who their new guest was.
Pumpkin bucked the ball again, and this time it went over goalpost, hitting Granny Smith, who nearly toppled over backward. Rarity called out the filly's name, scolding her before going to check that the older mare was unhurt.
"You know," said Twilight to Applejack as they trod along the path, leaving Ponyville behind them, "this would be so much easier if you let me lead."
Applejack snorted. "And give you the chance to escape?" she said, laughing. "Not a chance. I know the way. I think. I can lead fine," she added before stumbling over the cast on her leg, making the other ponies slow their pace again.
From the back of the line, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "This isn't going to be like the time you tried to take us to Zecora's, is it?"
"We got out of that okay, didn't we?" asked Spike, who was riding on Rainbow Dash's back. As he spoke, he lost his grip on Rainbow's coat and nearly toppled, and he had to grab onto her mane to avoid from falling off altogether.
Rainbow winced from the pain, but said nothing as Spike climbed up her mane and back into position. "Eventually," she said. "After a certain dragon panicked and started sending random sticks over to Celestia. We're lucky she was smart enough to figure it out." Her voice then dropped an octave, and each words emerged from her lips separately and covered in malice. "She summoned the Royal Guard to find us. I've never been more humiliated in my life."
"Sure you have," interrupted Fluttershy, who was walking alongside Twilight in the middle. "What about Rarity's botched fashion show? Or that incident back at Flight School in the principal's office?"
"Which one?" asked Rainbow, who had visited the principal more times than she could count on her two front hooves. Which was to say, she had been more than twice.
"The only one where the principal hadn't called you there. Remember, you made me promise never to tell anypony about it?"
"No..." said Rainbow, still trying to narrow down the possibilities.
"I think it involved a certain griffin and a can of axle grease, among some other things," recalled Fluttershy.
"Right..." moaned Rainbow Dash. "She didn't even go to the same school, you know that? Some snooty private school."
Rarity, trotting next to Rainbow Dash, broke her silence. "This nostalgia is nice and all, but it doesn't exactly explain what is going on here."
Spike shrugged. "You've got me," he said. "I'm as lost as you are."
Pinkie Pie, who had managed to refrain from speaking by hopping in circles around the other six, found an opportunity to join the conversation and seized it. "Twilight's been acting all funny because she's not Twilight," she said.
"Yes, yes," muttered Rarity. "You explained that already. But where are we going?"
"Sky Mirror Lake," answered Twilight. "I can explain things better once we get there. Trust me."
"Not likely," huffed Applejack. "I'd trust ya about as far as I can buck ya. I wouldn't put it past ya to run away."
"I can teleport, O-" Twilight paused. "I mean, Applejack," she finished. "If I didn't want to cooperate, I'd already be halfway to Stalliongrad."
"Jus' don't talk," ordered Applejack. "The next time you open that muzzle of yours, it better be explaining what the hay's goin' on around here."
To Twilight's relief, Sky Mirror Lake existed sunside.
Sunside was the word she had used in her notes to describe this world, and it made sense. The side with the sun, even if it wasn't sunny all the time. Now, as the group neared the water's edge, six pairs of eyes turned to her, expectantly.
"Okay," she began, her voice shaking. "I want you all to imagine that the world is like this lake."
Applejack's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me," she said insincerely, "but what does this have to do with you tellin' us where the real Twilight is, or what you're doin' here lookin' like her." She felt a shove against her shoulder, and she turned to see Rainbow Dash giving a glare.
"Let her finish," said Rainbow Dash. "She'll get to it."
Twilight shrunk back a little, frightened by the animosity. Fluttershy gave a small nod of encouragement, and Twilight continued.
"I told you, I am Twilight, just," She paused, not sure how to say it. She eventually decided to just explain it the way it was. "I'm her from another world."
"Horseapples."
"Now, as I was saying, imagine this lake is the world. Look into the water, and tell me what you see."
The others obeyed and began scanning the water for whatever Twilight was talking about. Fluttershy, noticing a school of fish, became distracted, giggling as they darted about. Applejack begrudgingly complied but didn't say anything. Pinkie Pie, rather than watch anything actually in the water, began making faces, using the lake as a mirror. Rainbow Dash looked over at Pinkie Pie's reflection and began laughing, filled with a sort of giddiness that could only happen around Pinkie Pie, and had to happen around Pinkie Pie.
"What do you see?" asked Twilight.
Rainbow Dash turned her head forward and examined her own reflection. "Just some kelp," she answered, "and rocks. And one very awesome pony."
"Exactly," said Twilight. Rainbow Dash raised her head, confused about what she had done to get the question right. "Your reflections," clarified Twilight. "If the lake is the world, then it has two halves. The part above the surface, where you are, and the part below, where your reflection is."
"You're Twilight's reflection," guessed Spike.
"And she's mine. In a manner of speaking."
Spike looked back at the water. "I guess," he said. "But wait. The reflections are exactly the same as us. Wouldn't that make your world just like ours?"
Twilight smiled. "An excellent observation, Spike. Which brings us to point number two: magic." She lifted a rock off of the ground with telekinesis. "Now imagine this rock is a spell. Watch what happens when I 'cast' it." She tossed the rock into the water, where it sunk to the bottom, creating a number of concentric waves at the point of impact. Pinkie Pie watched her reflection as it was distorted by the waves passing over it.
Fluttershy leaped away from the water and hid in the grass, while Pinkie Pie continued making faces in the water. "It's like a fun house mirror!" she exclaimed.
"Right," said Twilight. "Magic has a measurable 'rippling' effect of sorts on the other side. It's the use of magic that makes the two worlds different."
"Nah," said Applejack. "Look. The waves are already gone. They don't last forever."
Twilight nodded, trying to stay calm. "Right, Applejack, but remember this is just a model. When it comes to magic, the ripples can last a lot longer before they settle out. The point is, sometime in the past there was very powerful magic. Powerful enough to cause a major divergence between worlds that still hasn't resolved itself. That's why I don't know the things she knows. I'm not her; my life is completely different. That's why I wanted to come here."
"How?" asked Rainbow Dash, who now didn't know what to feel about the impostor. "What's so bad about life over there, on the other side?"
Twilight looked at the ground. Some part of her had been trying to convince her that the dark and barren world was only in her imagination, and it had taken all of her courage not to give up and believe it. "I never met any of you guys, for starters," she said. "You know the Summer Sun celebration, two years ago? That was the last day the sun rose in Equestria."
"Black Snooty?" asked Pinkie Pie.
Twilight stared at the pink mare, not comprehending. "Sure," she said at last. "This creature, Nightmare Moon, came to Equestria and covered it in eternal night. I was supposed to stop her. I failed. All across Equestria ponies are starving, and it's all my fault. But that's not important. The important part here is the rock."
"What's so special about a rock?" asked Rarity.
"Not what it is," corrected Twilight. "Where it is. The rock is on the other side of the water now. In the model, that means it's gone through the barrier between worlds. So, the question we asked ourselves was, if magical potential can travel across worlds, then why can't energy, or matter? What if it was possible to send a pony through to the other side?"
"We?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Zecora and me. She was my assistant."
"So that's what you did," said Applejack, trying to regain control of the situation. "You couldn't stand to look at the world you created, so you ran away."
Rarity shot Applejack a glare. "It wasn't her fault, Darling, it's was Nightmare Moon's."
"We couldn't run away. We couldn't figure it out," said Twilight. "Our first experiments were with light. We were able to build mirrors that would subject the photons to a magical field, force them to cross over. It was a way to see into your world, and it worked both ways. That was how we met the other Zecora. It must be a strange experience, meeting yourself. I don't know if I'll ever get to know it, though."
"But you did," said Rainbow Dash, staring at the impostor that resembled her friend. "You had to have met yourself. You kidnapped her."
"Let me finish," said Twilight. "After that, we started to become a bit more ambitious. We could send small items across, even though it took a lot of energy. We could even control where they landed, to a certain extent. And then I guess we got cocky. Full of ourselves, because we tried it on a pony."
"And?" asked Pinkie Pie.
Twilight closed her eyes, once again imagining the poor mare's singed flesh and flaming mane. "It was a failure," she explained. "A catastrophic failure. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe we didn't have enough power. But she didn't go through all the way."
"What happened?" asked Fluttershy, and the look on Twilight's face, grimacing and about to cry again, told Fluttershy she had struck a tender chord.
"We needed two burial sites," answered Twilight, slowly, trying desperately not to relive the memories. "One on each side."
"Oh," said Applejack quietly, her calm breaking.
"I'm so sorry, darling," counseled Rarity, not sure what else to do.
"We gave up after that," said Twilight. "It wasn't worth losing somepony else. We just wanted to ease the suffering, do what we could. We started building a magical greenhouse that could grow food, even without the sun. If we couldn't bring back the sun, we could at least try and solve the hunger problem. I like to think we saved a lot of lives with that." Twilight smiled, knowing that she had done some good, even if it was just reversing damage she had caused.
"Twilight," interrupted Applejack. "This still doesn't explain how you came over here. You said you never figured out how to transport a pony."
"We didn't," said Twilight. "And Zecora moved on. But I didn't stop thinking about this place. It was an endless temptation. A paradise, just out of reach. If we could only find a way across. But we couldn't, of course. The power required increased drastically with mass. We might be able to manage a filly, but I wouldn't stoop so low as to experiment on somepony that young. We just needed some way to reduce the mass of the transfer. And eventually we did. It was a theory, something untested. But it was a way to cross over purely using things we already knew how to do. It didn't require any matter to be transferred at all. After all, a body is just flesh. It's nothing special. It was the mind we needed to get across."
"You mean a brain-switching spell?" asked Pinkie Pie, who had decided to approach the story as a riddle. She'd seen a spell like that in Twilight's library, but had failed to convince her friend to use it to prank Rainbow Dash.
"A memory exchange," corrected Twilight. "Not even the whole brain. Memories are information; they have no mass. The only requirement was that the two parties had to be in close physical proximity to each other, even if they were on other sides. I knew where she lived; I followed her enough with a mirror to figure that out. So I wrote a letter, asking her to come to the castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in the Everfree Forest."
"I remember that," said Rainbow Dash. "We didn't see anypony there, and then Twilight just collapsed. She woke up all confused and embarrassed, so I took her home. But now that I think about it, right before it happened, I saw something. Like a shimmer in the air, only there was darkness behind it." She looked back at the lake. "It looked like ripples. That was you, wasn't it?"
"Girls," interrupted Rarity. "You're missing the important bit. This means that Twilight, our Twilight, is lost somewhere in a world ruled by that... that tyrant Nightmare Moon. Hopefully, if she has an ounce of salt in that new brainpan of hers, she'll be hiding out somewhere safe. We just need to get the other Twilight to switch them back."
"It won't be that easy," said Twilight quietly.
"And why the hay not?" asked Applejack.
"Like I said, we need to be in close proximity to each other. I wouldn't know where to find her."
"You could build another mirror," suggested Pinkie Pie.
"Actually," said Twilight, biting her lip, "there's another reason it may not work. You see, I didn't mean to come to this world unprepared. I wanted to spend a week or two following her, figuring out how she behaved, how to blend in, but my hand got forced a little early. I was attacked."
"Attacked?" echoed Pinkie Pie with a gasp. Twilight nodded. "By what?" asked Pinkie.
"I don't know," admitted Twilight. "Whatever it was, it wasn't pony. And it hurt me, pretty badly. Left a giant gash in my face." She traced down the side of her face with a hoof.
Rainbow Dash was about to interject and ask why they couldn't even see a scar, but the answer dawned on her. "You mean you put our friend in a wounded body?"
Twilight nodded. "The wound was bleeding pretty freely, but I managed to get away from it. But it looked like a hunter, and I figured it was only a matter of time until it found me again. If I wanted to cross over, I had to do it then. It's been a week since then. I don't even know if my old body is still alive. If it received prompt medical attention it might be okay, but it wouldn't since she would have woken up in the middle of the Everfree Forest."
Rarity couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You jackanape," she whispered.
Applejack looked at Rarity, shocked. "Rarity!" she cried. "That language ain't necessary."
"Don't you get it?" shouted Rarity. "Twilight may be dead, and it's all because this pony here was so much of a coward that she threw our Twilight under a metaphorical dragon's nest to save her own flank!"
"Hey, now, we'll get her back," said Fluttershy, but none of the other ponies heard her.
"Enough!" shouted Applejack. "Now I don't know 'bout the rest of y'all, but I don't plan on leaving a friend of mine out to dry." She approached Twilight, staring her down. "There's a killer after Twi' right now because it thinks she's you. But I ain't gonna let her die. Yer going to find a way to get Twilight back," she said. "I don't care how long it takes you. And if you can't do that, then yer going to find a way to get us over there to save her ourselves."
"But without a sufficient power source..." Twilight began to mumble.
"No buts. You will save her, y'hear?"
"Don't worry," said Fluttershy. "You'll find a way. You do live in a library now, so you have plenty of research material. I believe in you."
Twilight sighed, resigning herself to the impossible task before her.
"Actually," said Pinkie Pie, "I may be able to help too."
Everypony stared at her. "And how do you plan on doing that?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Well, not me helping, exactly," said Pinkie. "But I know a stallion who might be able to help Twilight."
"Who?" asked Twilight anxiously.
"Exactly!" shouted Pinkie Pie. Then her voice quieted. "Wait, no. Not 'who', but close. You know, he's that brown stallion with the hour glass cutie mark. I call him Whooves."
The world felt hazy around Twilight, as if it wasn't entirely certain what it was supposed to look like. Objects around her seemed wavy and out of focus, and she couldn't look at them without getting a headache. The walls of the cave were almost smooth like oil, and the entire experience felt psychedelic.
This was another dream, thought Twilight. It had to be. She realized that this was the first time she was aware she was dreaming. She wondered what would happen if she went crazy and broke character, but she didn't dare disrupt what was already in progress. If these dreams had a meaning, she wouldn't figure it out by turning them into her own playtime. She had to behave and do what the dream asked her to.
There were hoofbeats behind her; she wasn't alone. When she turned to look, however, she couldn't make out the faces of her comrades, nor how many there were. If this was a memory, it was a memory from long ago, the details long since washed away.
"Zecora?" she called, and her voice echoed back through the darkness. If the zebra had heard her, she didn't respond.
"It's... dark," said a voice from behind Twilight.
"Yeah," said another. "How about some light?"
Twilight laughed. Right. Light would help. She beat her hooves on the floor in rhythm. Two clops, a pause, and then three clops. The lights came on, and Twilight became aware of how much the room had changed since the last time she had seen it. The machines lining the wall were smashed in, and holes in the shape of thick claw marks adorned them on all sides. The damage was irreversible, realized Twilight, crestfallen. Her star map had been torn up. Jars were smashed and quills broken in two. Zecora was nowhere in sight, but two holes in the back led deeper into the mountain.
"Stay back," ordered Twilight, and she crossed the room and entered the left hole, which led to Zecora's sleeping quarters. Maybe she was just resting, reasoned Twilight. It was difficult to keep a reliable sleep schedule in a world without daylight, she reasoned.
The room was sparse and the walls were bare. A dirty mattress took up most of the space on one side, and the only other features of the room were masks and other trinkets from the zebra homeland. As in the main room, everything was destroyed. Wooden zebra heads, separated from their bodies, almost looked like they were crying over the destruction.
Twilight's head turned slowly as she took in the surrounding. There was little lighting in the bedroom; Zecora didn't need it, as she only used the room to sleep, so Twilight had to strain to make out the details, and it took her some time to notice the figure lying on the mattress.
"Zecora?" she repeated again, falling back on her haunches to get a closer look. Her horn hummed softly as it provided additional light. The zebra didn't appear to be moving.
"No." she whispered softly. She cried the zebra's name one more time and shoved her gently on the shoulder. Before she could do anything else, a large mass collided with her side and send her sprawling across the room. Trying to orient herself, she raised her head and found herself looking at two large glowing eyes.
"So you came back," hissed the voice. "Good. I wasn't done with you."
Twilight screamed.
When morning came, Twilight didn't have the strength to get out of bed. Her entire body ached when she tried to move, and the image of Zecora's broken body wouldn't leave her mind. She buried her head in the pillow and cried softly, not knowing what else to do.
She felt lost. Everything was changing around her; she didn't understand it and she had no control over it. It was all a horrible nightmare that she couldn't wake up from.
Twilight lost track of how long she lay in bed, trying not to think about anything. Rarity came in briefly to offer her some breakfast, but when she didn't respond to any of Rarity's questions, the white unicorn set the tray of food down and left.
When Twilight finally stopped crying, she began to consider her situation rationally. The dreams made a bit more sense now. They were her life, her real life. Any happy memories she had were fake. I really am brain damaged, she thought quietly.
Still, brain damaged or not, Twilight knew she couldn't let her fears and confusion rule her. When Rarity returned to check on her eating, she was ready.
"I can't eat this," she said, levitating the tray and shoving it back into Rarity's mouth. "It's charity."
"Who said anything about charity?" asked Rarity. "I told you, we don't have enough food for ourselves. You'd be earning your keep."
Twilight looked at the host of the Element of Generosity. "I'm not staying," she said. "And would you really let a complete stranger just join your family like that?" she asked.
"Well, the rest of the clan might have problems with it, but I'd talk some sense into them. Family's important, but it's not everything. I'd remind them how they took me in back before I was family. Which reminds me. Pumpkin's mother wants to talk to you. You're the mare of the hour, apparently."
"Really?" asked Twilight as she got out of bed. "I suppose I should get that over with. Can you show me the way?" She managed to get to the door before Rarity cleared her throat to get her attention.
"Yes?" Twilight asked, irritated.
"Darling, you're not fit to go anywhere until you finish your breakfast. I insist."
Twilight returned to the tray, which held two apples. Twilight felt stupid for not predicting the meal, and she devoured them both in a couple of bites. "I'll make this up to you," she told Rarity. "If I can use my magic, I'm sure I can help."
"And I'm sure you will help," said Rarity. "But first you have somepony to meet."
As Rarity led Twilight through fields and between houses, Twilight got her first detailed look at the real Sweet Apple Acres, and nothing in the atmosphere could betray the overwhelming sense of sorrow and desperation. Sickly thin trees stuck out of the ground at uneven angles, and they reminded Twilight strongly of the skeletal claws of some poor creature that had been buried before its time. The ponies they passed bore grim expressions, resigned faces drained of all energy, the only remaining hope being the hope of seeing their next meal. It reminded Twilight of how she felt on a cloudy day, only multiplied thousandfold. And that was precisely what it was, Twilight realized. The scene before her was what a thousand days without the sun had wrought.
"Is it like this everywhere?" she asked Rarity.
Rarity stopped walking, and Twilight almost bumped into her from behind. The white unicorn was thinking, trying to decide which words to use that would not betray the bitterness on her tongue.
"Only in the small towns," she said. "Most of the big cities, like Manehattan and Canterlot, are actually quite well off. You see, not long after the famine started, this big industrial company up north developed these magical greenhouses that could grow crops just as well as with the sun, if not better. Nopony goes hungry there, especially not if they have the right connections."
"Why don't you have any?" asked Twilight, figuring it was the obvious question.
Rarity reacted as if she had just been stung. "We'd love to," she explained. "But the company that makes them doesn't sell them. It rents them, and most of the food it makes itself. And they're not even going to notice a place like Ponyville, much less build their greenhouses here. The only option we'd have is to buy food straight from them, and while I'm no economist, I figure that if all of our bits leave Ponyville to get consumables, Ponyville will drown in its own debt. Somepony has to make food locally, and that's us." She started walking again at a slow trot. "Doesn't stop ponies everywhere from leaving for artificially greener pastures, though."
Twilight didn't understand why that was so difficult for Rarity to say. There was something her friend was intentionally leaving out, Twilight figured, some vital detail, but she didn't dare press any further and spent the rest of the trip in silence.
Pumpkin's family lived in a shack on the edge of the farm. As Rarity and Twilight approached, they noticed a gray earth filly struggling to gnaw a pumpkin off of its stem with her teeth. After ten seconds of furious chewing with little progress, she noticed the arrivals and waved to them, not letting go of the fruit.
"Hello, Inkalina," said Rarity. "Is your sister home?"
Inkalina released the plant and trotted over to Twilight. "Is this the new girl?" she asked in a timid voice that sounded like Fluttershy. "Um, it's nice to meet you, I guess. She's inside, with Pumpkin."
Rarity nodded and nudged Twilight forward. "Go ahead, darling. I need to get working. When you're done, ask Inky here what you can do. I'm sure she could use the help."
Twilight started toward the door, and Inkalina followed her. "So, you grow pumpkins?" asked Twilight.
Inkalina nodded. "We didn't, before sister got married. Back then, we grew potatoes. None of us liked them, though. Pinkie would joke that they were no better than rocks." She knocked on the door, twice in succession, and shouted. "We got company!"
Twilight hadn't heard anything after "Pinkie," and when the door opened and Pumpkin darted out between two pink forelegs, Twilight couldn't help but stare at the mare that now looked back at her with a weary expression. Her mane was flat and clung to her head, lacking its usual perkiness, and her normally lustrously bright coat was dull and muted. She looked nothing like she should, except for the basic coloring, and for a moment Twilight figured she must have simply misheard Inkalina.
The pink pony stretched her head through the opening and called Pumpkin's name, but her voice lacked any amount of assertion, and her request sounded more like pleading than an order. Inkalina opened the door fully and swung a hoof around the pink pony's neck.
"This here is Pinkamena Pie Custard, but we call her Pinkie Pie," Inkalina said, and Pinkie Pie seemed to shy away from the contact. "Now don't you worry," Inkalina said to her. "I'll take care of Pumpkin," and she trotted down the field after the filly, shouting "Now hold on, Sweetie Pie, yer not clean yet."
Pinkie Pie sighed and gestured to Twilight. "Would you like to come in?" she asked timidly, as if she wasn't even sure if she wanted it. Twilight nodded and followed Pinkie into the home.
"So, Pinkie Pie," she began, figuring she should get the dreaded conversation over with. Remembering Fluttershy, Twilight could only imagine what horrors the real Pinkie Pie had suffered that she had been spared in the idyllic dream world of Twilight's memories.
"Pinkamena," Pinkie Pie interrupted, not looking back.
"Excuse me?"
"My name is Pinkamena. Don't call me Pinkie." Pinkie began reorganizing a series of pans that had been left on a shelf, avoiding making any eye contact with Twilight.
The room was dusty and littered, having long since surrendered the battle against filth. Twilight knew she couldn't blame Pinkie for having higher priorities than making sure her home was well-dusted, but she still couldn't avoid the feeling of light disgust that pushed down on her whenever she was surrounded by anything in desperate need of organization. This, compounded by the stress of being forced into a new and unfamiliar situation with a new and unfamiliar Pinkie Pie, was not helping Twilight think clearly, she knew. "So, Pumpkin?" she said, trying to bring the conversation to something they both knew.
"She's my daughter," said Pinkamena, and Twilight saw her crack a smile. "And my life." She looked directly at Twilight for the first time since they'd entered the housing. "Thank you for saving her," she said slowly, and then immediately broke eye contact and grabbed a sponge in her teeth.
The way Pinkamena was acting, intentionally avoiding any real communication, disturbed Twilight. She didn't understand the way everypony seemed to be acting. Even Rarity, while the white unicorn hadn't shown any fear, had displayed carefulness mixed with curiosity. "I thought you wanted to talk to me," said Twilight, after another minute had passed with silence.
"I wanted to thank you," said Pinkamena, scrubbing one of the pans. "Which I have. I don't know what I'd do without Pumpkin. And so you can leave now."
Twilight wasn't satisfied. "So Pumpkin's your daughter," she pressed forward. "How did that happen?"
The Pinkie Pie Twilight knew would have used the opportunity to make a joke; Twilight realized after she spoke how the question could have been alternatively interpreted. Instead, Pinkamena stopped scrubbing, irritated. "The usual way," she answered. "I'm married, if that's what you're wondering."
"Of course," said Twilight, furiously backpedaling. "I didn't mean to say you weren't."
"Good. Please leave, then."
Twilight turned toward the door, but then she paused. She still had one more question to ask. "Why are you all afraid of me?"
No response. Twilight turned her head to look back at the earth pony.
"Please answer me, Pinkie. Why are you scared of me?" Pinkamena cringed when she heard the nickname. "I know I've probably done something bad, because Pumpkin said I eat fillies' souls, and Rarity said my name explained a lot. But whatever I've done, I don't remember it. I need your help, Pinkie. I need your laughter."
Pinkamena slowly forced herself to look at Twilight. "You called me Pinkie again," she said. "Why do you keep doing that. Only my family calls me that."
"I am your family. Or like a family, at any rate. I know you, Pinkie Pie, even if you don't know me. I remember you. You're the pony with the curliest mane and the brightest smiles and the biggest parties. You're the Element of Laughter, and nothing can ever scare you. But you've changed now, like the old you never even happened. But I still believe she's in there."
Pinkamena trotted toward Twilight, and Twilight winced, unsure what the other pony was going to do. Instead, Pinkamena moved past Twilight and closed the door. "I think we should sit down," she said. "And you need to run that by me one more time, because that's a lot for a pony to take in at once."
So Twilight recounted her tale to Pinkamena, starting with her first trip to Ponyville, describing their adventures together to defeat Nightmare Moon. Pinkamena listened thoughtfully and didn't interject except to ask questions about the other ponies in the story.
"I don't expect you to believe me," said Twilight after she finished.
"I do," admitted Pinkamena. "The Pinkie Pie in your story, I can kind of see it. She seems happier than me. And you called her the Element of Laughter." She leaned forward. "Have you ever heard the legend of the Sparks of Creation?"
"I don't usually pay attention to legends and mares' tales," said Twilight dryly.
"You did once," interjected Pinkamena. "And it paid off."
"I got lucky," insisted Twilight. "So, what are the Sparks of Creation?"
"An old pony legend. From the moment the first royal sisters were born, they were enemies, so the story goes. They fought each other, violently, and each spell cast, each blow they dealt with their horns shot hundreds of sparks off into the world. As the world was young at the time and not fully formed, most of the sparks weren't caught until they reached the backdrops at the edge of the universe, where they were embedded, becoming the stars. But as the world grew, the sparks became stuck in other things. Things like ponies."
"Stars don't work that way," interrupted Twilight. "They're gaseous bodies millions of miles away."
"But that part isn't important. What matters is that each pony has a spark. It's a glimmer of their true potential, and it can take many different forms. And I know mine exists because I've seen it."
Twilight was confused. "How do you see your spark?" she asked. "Is it like a cutie mark?"
"Sort of, but only in the sense that everypony has one. But while a cutie mark says what your talent is, your spark is more personal. And you know what they are because sometimes they ignite. When you need to do something important they flare up, like a bright flash, and then they tell you what to do. Are you curious to know what mine is?"
"Sure," said Twilight, trying to sound disinterested, although she was curious.
"I discovered it the day Pumpkin was born. It was actually the same day I got my cutie mark." She turned and showed Twilight the picture of three hearts on her hindquarters. "I was a nervous wreck that day. I didn't know how to handle being a mother. But when I saw her, everything started to settle down. Just looking at her made anything seem possible. Have you ever had a child?" Twilight shook her head. "Then I can't explain what it feels like. But it's the most amazing feeling ever. And as we looked into each other's eyes, she suddenly started laughing. And that's when I saw the flash. And I found myself laughing with her. Just looking at her face filled me with the greatest joy I'd ever known. I kept laughing and I never wanted to stop. The doctors probably thought I was deranged, but I just watched the laughter as it glowed and filled up the room. And that's when I knew why I was alive. For her. I loved her. Are you crying?"
"No," lied Twilight. "Continue."
"My spark was laughter. Laughter for my precious daughter. I never told anypony about the spark, and then you come along and call me the Element of Laughter."
"So you believe me?"
"That's not the only reason. On my wedding day, five years ago, I met a mare, and she said some of the same things you said, but she was older than you. 'Pinkie Pie'. 'Element of Laughter'. Nopony had called me by either of those names before. And she had a message for me. She said 'Someday, a long time from now, you're going to meet a pony by the name of Twilight Sparkle, and she's going to ask you for help. Do what you can, and pass along this message. The sun's wind can reach where the sun cannot. And what you have will show you what you need. Do either of those make any sense to you?"
Twilight shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "Who was she?"
Pinkamena shrugged. "I never saw her again after that. Who knows who she was? It's a mystery."
"Speaking of mysteries," asked Twilight, "who am I? My memories are clearly wrong, and you and your family seem to have heard about me. I want to know who I am, in your eyes. I want to understand why everypony's afraid of me."
Pinkamena thought for a moment. "First off," she said. "Ponyville's founded on earth pony tradition. Magic doesn't sit well with us. Just hearing that a mage had made a home in the mountains was worrisome. The fact that Nightmare Moon appeared the year the Summer Sun Festival was in Ponyville probably didn't help much either. But most of us ignored you until he showed up."
"He?" asked Twilight.
"I don't remember his name. He was a royal guardspony, still loyal to the missing princess. He believed that you were allied with Nightmare Moon, that you knew where the princess was taken to. He came to Ponyville because he was looking for you. He said you were a thief and a scoundrel, and he said that you killed anypony who got in your way, including foals."
"I would never hurt a foal!" exclaimed Twilight, feeling threatened. "Why would he say that?" Some small part of her reminded her that this Twilight wasn't her, that this Twilight was somepony else. Maybe the real Twilight, the Twilight that existed before she hit her head, would kill foals if they got in her way, but Twilight immediately took that notion and tore it to shreds. She would rather live in denial than face that she murdered foals.
"I'm not saying it's true," said Pinkamena, trying to defend herself. "I'm just repeating what he told us. And that's really all we know about you, Twilight. He searched the mountains, but I don't think he found you. The mountains are a pretty big place, after all."
"I see," said Twilight. She didn't know what to say after that. She had even more to take in than Pinkamena. All her life she had striven to do right by other ponies while she perfected her craft. She would never harm anypony, foals least of all. But now she was learning that the life she thought she had didn't exist and may never have existed. She didn't know anything about her past.
But she did know about her future. She knew that whatever monster she had been was gone now. It had no hold over her. And while she didn't know about the past, there was a very easy way to figure it out.
"Thank you, Pinkamena, you've been helpful," said Twilight as she stood and headed toward the door. "But I promised Rarity I'd help Inkalina today."
Pinkamena nodded. "You should do that. Breaking a promise is the fastest way to lose a friend."
"Forever," finished Twilight. "You really are Pinkie Pie, aren't you? And I just have one more question. Is there a library in Ponyville?"
"I think so," said Pinkie Pie. "Although it doesn't get used often."
