Jovia

A cloak flapped in the vast expanse of the dome and settled onto the floor. A golden shoe tapped on the marble.

The magic-infused glow cast a gleam over the columns encircling the mosaic. As she passed under the dome, the intruder caught a gleam and looked up at the painted ceiling. Two eyes, the edges of which pointed more prominently than those of a usual equine, took in the faint outlines of the fresco.

The architecture was pure pegasus in style, but those weren’t pegasus images. One was of the Princess reclining on a hill of velvet. She was lounging in a cloak that draped over her flanks, reaching out for the extended hooves of several winged pegasi and several earth ponies. Celestia felt the smile grow on her lips. The other ponies stood on a cloud and were higher than the Princess.

Star Swirl University had been built within two years, which was quite impressive for a campus nearly the size of a palace. Celestia had watched the process every day and had occasionally chimed in with suggestions for the Princess. She was pleased to see that the royal had taken them onboard.

The pegasi had taken charge of the building design, which was why it was so full of columns. Pegasi loved columns. Back at Pegasopolis, they used them as casual bucking posts, where it was considered good training and the columns were easy to repair.

Equestrian ponies had protested, however, when the army had started lumping clouds together. It was agreed that earth materials would be used this time. This was out of deferment to the fact that, beforehand, earth and unicorn ponies tended to fall through the portico.

Yet the flying ponies weren’t used to handling anything more substantial than a clump of cumulus. Enter the earth stallions, who had roped and rolled and pushed blocks of sandstone, granite, and marble until they had the main structures up. It still boggled their fellows how effortlessly they made megaton weightlifting look.

After that, the building needed the unicorn touch. It was such now that new arrivals travelling from distant lands always made a point to visit the university grounds on their first day.

She was just beginning to grasp what a meeting of the three pony minds could achieve. Celestia lowered her head. Gold tapped against the marble. She wondered whether it would be worth keeping up the old jade illusion, but she was tired and in any case no one seemed to be around.

White wings unfolded, stretched, and flapped before she sheathed them again. The book landed gently on a lectern so ornate it would have put a church pulpit – indeed, probably an entire cathedral – to shame. She stood by it. Celestia would have preferred lying down when reading, but most ponies didn’t and she was too single-minded to indulge herself at that moment.

Elements of Harmony, she thought. Alicorns didn’t believe in them, but that hadn’t stopped her race from telling the stories to their foals. That always puzzled her. Not a single mare or stallion would even acknowledge that they knew such stories existed, yet time and time again she had passed by a mother’s door or a father’s chamber and heard the stories told in exquisite detail.

Celestia knew the tales well. She always imagined them told in her mother’s voice, because the Queen had been the first one to tell them to her. No one else’s voice did them justice. Luna hadn’t been so lucky – she’d been born soon after the absences began, some two decades after her mother’s return and only one week before her mother left again.

Celestia still remembered the crib – made from obsidian – over which she’d draped her pasterns and leaned over her younger sister. She used to speak in that hushed voice she always adopted when telling stories, and the filly tucked under the blankets used to try patting her sister’s white nose. It amused Celestia, until her sister stopped doing it one day, folded her legs, and asked her to stop using the funny voice.

The memories of the stories were misty. Celestia draped her pasterns over the desk; she remembered being told that if she acted as she did at the time of the memories forming, they’d come back to her. She’d never tried it out, but then there were only so many variations of standing listening to an old guy giving speeches you could experiment with before you started looking silly.

Whether this helped or not, the stories retold themselves in her mind. She mouthed the words. Something about five stones, and five symbols, and five colours of the rainbow. Her memory faltered after that.

Oh, she thought sadly, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?

Pages flicked left to right before her. The word “Harmony” never occurred on any page. For a moment, she thought she saw “Elements” and turned back, but she got as far as reading, “The elements that make up this table are varied and precise, and all ninety two of them–” before she felt her eyelids droop further and continued poring over the rest of the tome.

Finally, the contents, dedication, title page, half title, and blank pages whizzed by before the hardback snapped shut and she summoned another book.

“What can you tell me about the Elements of Harmony?” she said. This wasn’t the first time those words had been given life by her breath. The first time, however, the words had been left to wither and die by a lot of monocle-wearing stares.

Why the fascination, though? Alicorns hated the idea of a power greater than theirs, and the Elements of Harmony stuck out in their mythology like an alicorn mare among foals. Yet, for some reason they had seen fit to keep this one legend afloat. Was it a warning to be carried over the heads of the generations? Just in case?

The hardback’s board hit the wood before she heard a chuckle echo from the distance. She snuffed out her light and both ears stiffened.

Had the Librarian come back? Celestia was blind even in mild darkness, (a price she paid for being able to stare at direct sunlight without feeling pain), but at least she no longer had a beacon by which she could be discovered. All the same, she was an equine at heart, and her eyes began scanning the hall for movement.

Chuckles echoed once more, louder this time. The echoes were slightly delayed, as though a row of clones were imitating the one next to them in a line.

“Out for a stroll, dear Celestia?” said the echo. “Wanted some time under somepony else’s moonlight?”

She knew that voice. The golden glow returned; there was no longer any point in hiding.

“Venusia? You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Oh, cousin,” said the echo around the dome. “Don’t be a hothead.”

A flame burst from the tiles and flared almost to the fresco, releasing a sphere of shimmering air. Without even touching the ceiling, the flame lapped up melting drips of paint as they rained down. The flames blew out. Black scorch marks smothered the mosaic tiles under ruby shoes.

“That’s my role,” said the mare.

The last licks of flame blew themselves out. Two orange wings spread out and the yellow eyes glowed like magma. It wasn’t necessary, but Venusia thought flame effects looked quite impressive and she always forgot that Celestia managed a giant star in her spare time.

Celestia put a hoof to her own mouth. The mare with the flaming mane was already frowning, but somehow she made her expression burn more intensely.

“What are you snickering at?” she said. Paint trickled down her face. One trail had run over her cheek freckles.

“Oh, nothing,” said Celestia. “I apologise if I put you out.” She tapped her own snout, hoping to get across the hint, but it was wasted on her cousin. When it came to body language, Venusia had all the subtlety of a brick in a furnace.

“What are you reading this time?” A ruby shoe was pointed accusingly at the lectern. “I would summon it over here, but I’m not interested enough to do that.”

“You did not have permission to leave Avalock,” said Celestia firmly. She knew Venusia’s telepathic powers could barely reach over to her own shoes.

“While you can go whenever you want, wherever you please, Acting Queen of the Alicorns. She who makes the rules gets to break ‘em, eh?”

“Venusia, please.” Celestia stepped down from the platform. “If you need me, I assure you I will return to the castle in due time, but right now I’m occupied.”

“Need you?” Venusia spat. “Conceited sun juggler. You act like nothing stands a chance of burning Avalock down to the ground while you’re in charge. Well, we’re dissatisfied with the way you handle things.”

“The realm is perfectly safe while we are on the throne. I haven’t given up on my fellow–”

“Tell that to the Roundwings!” Tiles cracked under her stomped hoof.

Celestia placed her own four legs more widely apart, ready to fire if her cousin began bucking things.

“I’m dissatisfied with how you handle things.”

Celestia’s lips became a hard line. There were several alicorns who would quite happily take the throne if they thought she’d give it up. The fact that she sometimes wished she could give it up only made her more determined not to give them any pretext.

The Queen had been away from Avalock several times. When Celestia had been a filly, the ministers of the court had looked after the realm, leaving Celestia free to race in the fields and soar in the skies. She could feel the wind rush over her eyes and through her mane even now, though now that her mane was constantly flowing all by itself this was harder to notice. Later still, when Luna had come into her life, the absences were easier to bear. Then, Celestia had reached maturity…

No, Celestia told herself, don’t think of those times now, not in front of Venusia. She narrowed her eyes as she felt the chill seep in. The tiara weighed on her mind.

“I know what your views are,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “My stance will not change. There’s currently no threat from the Roundwing faction in Avalock, so we will incarcerate only those ministers who have a confirmed allegiance with them. If you have a problem with my methods, you are free to discuss it with me in court, but do not go gallivanting across realms so recklessly.”

Venusia pouted. She was shaking with anger.

“Are you even going to tell me what you’re up to?” she said.

“That is private royal business. I’m sorry.”

“Need to know, huh?” The paint evaporated on the alicorn’s glowing face. She leered at Celestia, who was a thumb shorter than her but far less gangly. “As you wish. Personally, I cannot understand why you should have any more claim to that throne than I have. I’m older than you, my pyrotechnics surpass yours by ten thousand years, and on sheer merit alone I could run rings around you and set them on fire. But I’m just here to deliver the messages.”

“Farewell, Venusia,” said Celestia meaningfully.

Venusia scowled. A mushroom of flame engulfed her, a flash of light washed over her body, and they were both plunged back into darkness. When Celestia turned on her own light, there was a star-shaped scorch mark reaching across the entire mosaic to the columns. Venusia was gone.

Celestia frowned and closed her eyes. Motes like dust caught in sunlight drifted from her horn. They scattered over the floor and rose to the roof. There was no excuse, she thought, for such desecration.

Celestia winked and the sun dust went out. The mosaic was restored. The fresco, however, would not be as beautiful as before, though hopefully she’d left enough smudges to attract attention so that the painter could repair the work herself.

The ashes pooled together and the cloak floated up and landed on her withers. Celestia turned back to the book, and began skimming through the pages for any mention of the Elements of Harmony.

Sometime later, an old jade hobbled out of the building. She went down the steps, walked round the corner, and vanished in a puff of golden dust.

Squat stone huts were scattered between the hills and valleys around the town hall, which was clearly more important than the rest because it was twice as tall, twice as long, and twice as wide as any other building in the district. Despite the earth ponies’ protests, the rest of the Canterlot town residents called it the “little town hall”. The distant palace of Canterlot’s unicorn district could still be seen from there, looming like a gentle but firm reminder.

Earth district was proof that, no matter how far from the roots it travels, the rest of the plant will still draw on old soil. One of the flowers of this old soil was currently in full bloom: a timber stage had been set up on the square green, and a crowd had fallen silent around it. Some of the members of the crowd – the ones with horns or wings – occasionally pretended that they weren’t there, whenever they remembered themselves. Some tried to suppress coughs while the rest of the crowd stared entranced at the stage.

Clover felt at home among all the hooded figures. In fact, it was quite odd seeing Smart Cookie dressed more snappily than both her and the rest of the ponies, but no one was making an issue of it. Any earth pony who could afford a pointy hat with a feather in it, a jacket with a collar, and – so help the peasants – puffed sleeves was clearly someone you didn’t bother if you could only stitch up a burlap sack in response.

“Now you see the futility of aligning yourself with these vices,” said the stallion onstage. His coronet was quite a good replica of the Princess’, Clover thought. Beside the actor was a much smaller and more shabbily dressed mare, who was currently cringing at his loud speech. He pointed at a troupe coming on, stage left. “If you indulge them, then you will never stop.”

Smart Cookie leaned forwards, jaws agape. Occasionally, she recited bits of dialogue under her breath along with the stallion.

“Who… who are they?” said the mare, backing away from the advancing troupe and bumping into the stallion.

“You know them well enough, though this be the first time you’ve seen them undisguised.” He pointed a hoof. “See fair Dishonesty, a wily colt. He shall fill you up with comforts and securities, even as he walks you over the cliff of doom. Beware the punishments of Cruelty, who whispers discipline and the wholesome release of anger, before he beats you with the stick that never ceases to sting. Stand back! For here comes the Grim!”

One cloaked figure advanced, wings protruding from two slits in the back of the folds. Clover nudged Smart Cookie.

“They don’t usually have a pegasus playing the role, do they?” she whispered.

“Nuh uh. Back home, we used to have these fake black wings sewn into the cloak. I preferred it that way; there was hard work put into them wings.”

“The real wings do look really good, though.”

“Ah’ll grant you that, but it’s the spirit of the thing.”

Somepony one row ahead turned around and shushed them. Onstage, the Grim had only just been warded off by the protective stallion.

“His very touch has drained me,” said the mare, falling to her knees. “Save me, please! No more!”

“But you have yet to meet an old friend,” continued the stallion. “Miserliness, the one who turned his back on your dearest sister.”

Clover felt a knot in her stomach when she saw their depiction of this vice. Of course, they don’t really mean it, she thought hastily. This was a centuries-old play.

“Was she not cast out in pegasus winter snow, cold and starving like yourself? Did she not have need of food and water, something we all share in ponydom? From door to door you both travelled, begging, praying, and reducing yourselves to bones and skin just for the sake of a little crumb? Did the unicorns not hear your cries? Did their gold not rot uselessly in their vaults while two stomachs groaned for food?”

Clover didn’t feel much better. Not even when she noticed the Miserliness actor was wearing a horn with a string. None of the faces surrounding her seemed disturbed. She assumed Smart Cookie and the others were mentally glossing over this kind of detail as they watched.

“My friends,” cried the mare, briefly regaining colour. “My friends will save me from them. My family, my kin, my fellow citizens will not forsake me.”

Now the last remaining member of the troupe closed in, a truffle pudding atop her curly mane. A wooden knife and fork were embedded either side of it like horns.

“They have already left,” she said. “When they saw us coming, they saved their own skins. You would have to journey across the horizon to see them again.” All five members of the troupe closed around the mare and the stallion, whispering and cursing and laughing within the pentagon.

The five stood back. Smart Cookie suppressed a snuffle as the mare faced her protector and got down onto her stomach at his hooves.

“You are all I have left,” pleaded the mare. “Though I do not know your name, I will obey every word you say. I cannot live in a world of such horrors!”

The stallion peered out across the green, as though silently judging the ponies in the crowd. He was met with a sea of anxious faces, and the five closed in on the mare behind him.

“There is nothing I can do,” he said. “Although I have the strength to vanquish these foes, I cannot wield it unless you help me.”

Boards creaked as the mare stood up hastily. “Then tell me how. How?”

“You have little time left. If you want to be free for the last few moments, you must go along the longest path on Earth and find five mares or stallions who can match these five fiends. I must go now.”

At the sight of the stallion walking towards the exit, the mare struggled against five pairs of hooves closing around her body. She pushed hard enough to break a foreleg free of their grip.

“Have mercy on me, please!”

He stopped just at the top of the steps leading down. He did not look back.

“When you find the five virtues you’re looking for, then we will meet again.”

Everypony in the audience was weeping as the mare was dragged offstage. All the actors disappeared behind the backdrop.

Clover looked around and saw that Smart Cookie was wiping her own eyes.

“Ah’ve seen it fifteen times,” said the earth pony, “and it always gets me around that part.”

This broke Clover out of her trance. While the ponies around them waited for the next scene, she leaned across to Smart Cookie’s drooping ear.

“I need an escort back to old Earth town,” she whispered. “It’s urgent.”

“This is about what you saw in the mountains, ain’t it?”

“It might be.”

“Well, can’t it wait until the play’s over, please? If Ah don’t see the ending, Ah’ll be havin’ nightmares about this scene for weeks.”

Clover sighed away from Smart Cookie. During their time together, both had built up the sort of accord that strengthens between two mares when everypony else around was either too loony or too weak-willed for their sanities to survive it alone. It was a delight to learn from watching Smart Cookie just how the phrase ‘down-to-earth’ came about. All the same, when it came to revisiting earth pony traditions, that down-to-earth quality had a bad habit of hanging itself on a coat peg just outside the door.

“I just need to put together two last pieces of the puzzle,” said Clover. “I’m this close to figuring out something important.”

“Will you tell us what you saw in them mountains if we go?”

Clover nodded, while the mare climbed back onto stage for the next scene.

Most of the journey along the dirt road was spent listening to Smart Cookie’s cheerful stories, which was just as well. They felt uneasy traversing from sunny fields to sloshy mud flats to patchwork soil and snow. By the time they reached the mountains, they saw that the river far below in the gorge was frozen over.

“I thought we got rid of all this,” said Clover, gesturing at the layers of snow on the rocky overhangs. Smart Cookie looked up. Both of them could see the gems winking at them from the mountainside, but they paid no special attention. Gems were as common as pebbles and would fetch roughly the same price on the jewellers’ market.

“In Equestria, maybe,” said Smart Cookie. “But outside? There’s still places where ponies don’t get along. You mean you didn’t notice?”

“Notice?”

Smart Cookie knocked a stone aside with her hoof. It plummeted down the ravine and disappeared from view.

“All them ponies coming in from all sides of the continent. Earth ponies have been queuing up just to get past the hinterlands around Equestria. You never wondered why the town’s growing so fast?”

Clover had wondered, though only when she’d allowed herself time. The night before she’d set off, for example, her mind had fussed and worried over the meaning of the earth ponies relative to her vision in the mountains. Her mind being what it was, this had inevitably led to her chewing on the question of where all the earth ponies flooding through the gates along her town’s walls were coming from. Even in the old country, there hadn’t been that many.

Smoke rose from a distant peak and began dirtying a trail through the blue sky. Both friends kept an eye on it as they wound along the slope. They’d heard stories about dragons from travellers taking the mountain route. Either that was one taking a nap in a cave, or they’d just discovered their first active volcano.

“Equestria’s pretty much a sanctuary right now,” continued Smart Cookie. “Mah cousins came from the Mire only last week, an’ they tell me there’s still a lot of fightin’ between the unicorns and the pegasi there. They were both still covered in snow when they told me all about it.”

“Your cousins?”

“Yeah. Chocolate Chip and Fortune. They were farmers, working the land for the unicorn barons, an’ they hated every last day of it. They only did it ‘cause they had no choice.”

“Good grief. They still do that? But I thought the earth ponies were done with all that feudalism long ago.”

“Only in the old country. An’ we got lucky. For everypony else, it’s either the unicorns or the pegasi rulin’ the roost. You really didn’t know all this?”

Clover coughed and blushed. Something about history books went through her mind, but she mentally hushed it and examined the cloud overhead.

The old country, she thought. Canterlot earth ponies treated it as a bad childhood they’d outgrown. Except as some place several miles and several years away, they barely acknowledged its existence. It was part of that nebulous area on their world maps that wasn’t Canterlot, the sort of place over which cartographers could write “Here Be Dragons” before taking the rest of the day off.

Everywhere else, it seemed, wasn’t much better than history. Clover thought back to the books she’d read, and certain details began popping up in her mind. Smart Cookie was happy to fill in the blanks for her, which was good because Clover wanted any excuse to avoid the silence along the lonely road.

Earth pony living hadn’t been easy. As soon as they turned barren marshland into turnip, carrot, and leek paradise, they found themselves beset on all sides by glowing horns and wings poised to dive-bomb their heads. Even their ability to kick a pony clean through a row of trees – a skill known in the trade as the longbuck – hadn’t saved them. The unicorns simply levitated fighters out of reach, while the pegasi flew in mobs and plucked stray fighters from the ground.

Sometimes, the pegasi would outmanoeuvre the magic-casters with superior tactics. Sometimes, the unicorns would simply blast the air force into submission. It made little difference to the earth ponies. Whichever side won, they were stuck in the middle and doomed to lose.

There had been an arrangement, and it was simple: earth ponies grew the food for their masters, and in return the magic-crafting/fine-winged protectors would make sure they weren’t overrun by those untrustworthy featherbrained/horn-headed hacks from the next empire along.

The pair made their way down to the hills and valleys of the old land. The world was now entirely overshadowed by grey cloud, and there was nothing to see except whiteness. Hooves crunched into the snow, leaving prints as they wandered straight ahead. The path was complete guesswork now. A few snowflakes passed their faces.

Smart Cookie shivered in the wind. “It’s at times like this, Ah wish the fashion favoured clothes that didn’t leave you shivering in a breeze. Ah sure do envy your burlap hood right about now.”

Clover tightened the cord around her neck. The ends were fraying, and she remembered that Aglet had promised to fix them when she went back.

“Why didn’t you wear a hood?” she said.

“Ah’m a secretary. You gotta wear the uniform when you’re secretary, so’s ponies know.”

“But you just said yourself you’re cold.”

“Well, Ah am now. Jus’ look at this place. You can’t move for the blizzard a-creepin’ in.”

Indeed, the wind was picking up speed and they were forced to bow their heads and plough through. Clover gritted her teeth and the tip of her horn began glowing with a fiery purple flame. A patch of snow melted below their hooves, the wind eased, and all the snowflakes above them evaporated. Soon, they could see the grass and the brown dirt path again. Smart Cookie raised her head and sighed with relief.

“Still goin’ strong, huh?” she said. Clover shook the snow from her hood.

“I can see the path now.”

“Hey, yeah, this might be the one. An’ if that over there is what Ah think it is, this could be the right route. This way.”

Snow melted ahead of them. They walked over squishy grass and moist soil before leaving a trail of green behind, which slowly began to whiten again under the surrounding blizzard.

“That wasn’t what I meant, anyway,” said Clover as they approached the lump of white. “I meant that you’re an earth pony too. I was just surprised that you weren’t wearing something a little more… modest when you were off work.”

Smart Cookie pursed her lips. “Modest, you say?”

“I mean it makes sense when you’re working with Puddinghead to wear it, but I had you down as an everymare kind of pony.”

“We had to work hard to even earn the right to wear fancy clothes like this. Ain’t it occurred to you that bein’ modest don’t mean Ah have to dress like Ah’m a peasant?”

“Well, of course not, but–”

“Modesty ain’t about tryin’ to make yourself look poorer than you really are. That’s just as dishonest as tryin’ to make yourself look richer than you are. Ah’m a secretary. Ah wear the clothes for the role so’s Ah and everypony else will know exactly who Ah am. No more, no less.”

Clover had to do some mental backtracking. Her friend always caught her out like this. One moment, she seemed to be a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist, and the next moment she reminded you why she’d been involved with the likes of Puddinghead, who thought tradition was a dusty old book that needed burning (or at least needed some serious being-stared-at).

The double doors pushed back and the last flecks of snow dropped and melted on the warm boards.

“Well, by golly this does bring back memories,” said Smart Cookie. Doors slammed shut behind them and Clover let the glow die in her horn. “Ah haven’t seen this place in years.”

“This was the Chancellor’s home?”

It was surprisingly smaller than she’d expected, and plainer. If she’d been honest with herself, she’d been looking for browns, pinks, yellows, oranges, and reds, the colours of the Chancellor’s garments. Probably one or two cake motifs along the walls, a lot of pink bows and ribbons, and something frilly here and there.

This place was granite grey. It had too many squares. Most of the wall before her was mantelpiece and chimney, looming like an indoor monolith. It looked, in short, like a house that wanted no truck with interior decorating.

“That’s the chimney she used when we had the blizzards,” said Smart Cookie, chuckling. “Just climbed onto the roof and went down the chute. Ah can still hear her now. ‘You gotta think inside the chimney. Can y’all think inside a chimney? Hold on: Ah’m just about to have a brilliant chimney!’”

“I don’t blame her, if she had to get through a snow drift like that,” said Clover, looking back.

“What’s that?”

“I said, I don’t blame her, if she had to get through a snow drift like the one we just went through. We didn’t have Fire of Friendship to melt it back then, did we?”

Smart Cookie looked as though clockwork was clicking into place within her head. This was clearly something she hadn’t considered before. A moment later, a glow of admiration began to swell on her features, until she looked across and realised that Puddinghead could simply have used the window. Or a shovel.

“Ah used to come in here every day,” said Smart Cookie, “to talk to the Chancellor about day-to-day stuff.”

“You talk about it as though you liked it.”

“Well, it was tryin’ at times. OK, most of the time. Well, nearly all the time, Ah won’t lie. But you should have been there when we had our first election. Ah can’t remember a happier year before Equestria.”

Intriguing, thought Clover. She never seemed to think much of the Chancellor before now. I ought to pursue this when I’ve got time on my hooves.

Until then, there was investigating to do. She went back to examining the room. There wasn’t much to notice: the chimney dead ahead, the window to the right of her, and to the left…

“Good, ain’t it?” The secretary watched her approach the golden frame. “It was a commission from some old earth pony artist the name of which Ah can’t remember just this moment…”

“Butter Jelly,” Clover read from the plaque. “A portrait of the Lady Star Fruit as a young mare.”

They both sat before the panel painting. The oil was starting to lose its colour, but otherwise it had kept remarkably well. Or maybe it was supposed to look faded and grey, because most of the picture was given over to a flowing cloak not unlike Grim’s cloak from the play. There were holes for the wings, though these were white. A wrinkled face peered out at them, its expression hard to read between its lowered eyelids, shrivelled skin, and indecisive lips frozen halfway between a smile and a sad droop. The backdrop behind it featured rolling hills and an overcast sunset, yet it was to the face that Clover’s gaze kept being drawn.

“How long have you had this?” said Clover. “I can’t imagine the Chancellorship has been around long, so where was this before that?”

“Dates back to the olden days, long before all the feudin’ an’ stuff. Villages was our home back then, an’ every village had at least one big house where all the fancy folk lived.”

“Fancy folk?”

“You don’t think the unicorns were the only bigwigs around back then, did you? Puddinghead was jus’ the next pony in a long line of country folk who had more money than sense. They was the lucky ones. This paintin’ was just moved from the Chancellor’s home to this place. Goes back generations.”

“I see. And this painting is of a pegasus pony because…?”

“Well, technic’ly, it’s a winged pony.”

Clover raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s a pegasus.”

“No, it’s a winged pony.”

“That’s what I’m saying to you! It’s a pegasus.”

Smart Cookie took a breath. “Not to some ways of thinkin’. You see, to some ways of thinkin’, a pegasus ain’t just a winged pony, an’ a winged pony ain’t straight up a pegasus pony. Seems to some minds–” she coughed “– seems to some minds that there’s more to bein’ a pegasus than just havin’ a third pair of legs with feathers on. It’s like a frame of mind, you see?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Talk to Private about it sometime.” The secretary scratched her neck. “Anyway, this here is a winged pony. She might not even be real. There’s lots of ‘em in our olden stories. We don’t have a problem with it.”

“It’s still not what I was expecting, though.”

Smart Cookie shrugged. “Even earth ponies dream of flyin’.”

Why hadn’t we known that? thought Clover. Hornbooks on earth pony folklore and mythology hadn’t spoken to her much of winged ponies. Then again, the books had been written by unicorns. That would at least explain why they’d been so thin. Even the more flattering ones had adopted a tone like a pet owner smiling at a dog’s trick.

“I see,” she said. “Did they ever dream of talking pictures?”

For the first time, the sound of the blizzard howling outside blew over their minds. The window was pure white. Globs of snow hit the ashes in the fireplace like a melted Santa Claus.

“How did you know that?” said Smart Cookie.

“I’ll tell you, but first you’ve got to tell me what you know.”

“Well, she said that she got some of her best ideas from it, and she said it could, but Ah never once heard it–”

“She claimed that the painting sometimes spoke to her when she was alone,” said Clover.

“An’ you think she weren’t bein’… a li’l figurative, or maybe jus’ overimaginative?”

“Tactfully put, and if this had been a few years ago I wouldn’t have believed it either.” Clover rubbed her chin and put her hoof against the plaque. “Some of her best ideas from it… interesting way to put it.”

“You believe her?”

Clover stared up at the painting’s unfathomable eyes. Star Fruit was an odd choice of name, with virtually no precedent and no follow up. What did it even signify? If she could only have seen the cutie mark, she may have gotten it.

“Let me show you how I think this works,” she said. All four legs spread wide apart, bracing her body. A purple aura permeated the space above her head. There was a noise like the air charging up. Clover shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, a stance which was body language for: do not break my concentration unless you like your limbs where they are. Smart Cookie backed away instantly.

The flash blinded her. By the time she could look again, the space was empty.

“Clover?” Smart Cookie glanced around the room, but there was so little of it that it didn’t take long. “Where are you? Come on out.”

She gulped. Could unicorns simply implode if their magic failed to work? She’d never heard of such a thing before, but she wasn’t pleased at the idea of being the first to witness it.

“Are you still here?” she said. “What d’you do? Turn invisible?”

“I’m not invisible,” said Clover’s voice. The secretary looked back at the painting.

Smart Cookie was used to Puddinghead weirdness. She’d thought, at the time, that this would’ve prepared her for any weirdness the unicorns could throw at her. Then, just when she’d gotten used to telekinesis and fiery hearts and horns being used for flashlights on dark avenues, Clover would come along and spring something on her too weird to be found under the dictionary, and Smart Cookie would be found under the table with Private Pansy, shivering.

Her mouth made a valiant effort to speak. “Is… Is… Is th-th-that…?”

“Yes, it’s me,” said the painting. The old jade moved around the frame. “It’s a bit cramped here, but, erm, the canvas feels kind of nice.”

“Y…Yo…You…”

“Don’t worry too much. It’s just an illusion. I’m not really here.”

“B…Bu…But…”

“But it is difficult to pull off. Someone with quite a lot of magical power must have been behind it. Hold on a sec.”

The painting flashed purple. Clover reappeared, and the Lady Star Fruit looked unperturbed once again. A nudge of a hoof brought Smart Cookie back to earth.

“Wh-What?” she said, shaking her head. “D-Don’t you ever d-do that again without warning.”

“I’m sorry. It was convincing, though, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, it convinced me,” said Smart Cookie. “And then some.”

Clover summoned a weak smile. “I’m sorry.”

“So,” said her friend, getting breath back, “what does that prove?”

“That there’s a little more going on behind the scenes of earth pony government than I’d thought.” She stroked her chin, still staring up at the painting. “Yes, that should be enough. We’ll head back to Canterlot now.”

They stood back to let the snowdrift fall in. As they passed through the melting mush, both of them glowed with purple flames.

“So now you’re gonna tell me what that has to do with that thing you saw in the mountains?” Smart Cookie had a memory like a longbow; always tensed, loaded and fired with a practised archer’s accuracy.

“Yes,” said Clover. “And then I can show you something else, too.”

As the door shut behind them, Smart Cookie thought back to the painting.

“Can you show me in a less graphic way next time?”