Petalback

Chapters

Grim Host
Investigations
The Everfront
Stormy Meditations

Grim Host

Clouds rumbled across the sky, leaves swayed in the slight breeze, and glowing eyes ducked back into the shadows. Then Rainbow Dash zoomed ahead and Twilight Sparkle galloped in her wake. Spike clung on tightly to her neck.

“Rainbow!” She stumbled on a protruding root, flashed her horn, and righted herself without stopping once. “Slow down! I can’t move as fast as you!”

“Where are we going!?” Spike winced with each irregular jolt.

“Zecora’s!” came the cry from up ahead. “We’re almost there! Hurry up!”

The last of the undergrowth slapped her face, and then Twilight emerged into the clearing before the hut. Wooden masks passed her by, their posts slightly angled. Two windows stared out from its bulbous base. Rainbow burst through the front door, and its mouth was still widening when she jumped through, skidding to a halt.

A central cauldron bubbled over the bricked-in flames. Rainbow hovered overhead, glowering across the space to a huddle.

“She’s there.” Rainbow nodded her head curtly in their direction.

Spike whimpered and squeezed her neck. Twilight took a breath, stepping forwards. Zecora was standing by the bed, but as soon as she noticed Twilight she stepped aside, revealing…

Fluttershy sat up on the quilt, smiling feebly. “Twilight,” she said, and she sighed in relief.

Spike gasped.

For a moment, Twilight couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her eyelids rammed shut and then opened again in a futile attempt to expel any illusions. How could Fluttershy be smiling at all?

Then Fluttershy’s face winced and a spasm sliced through her body. Twilight jumped forwards – and recoiled when Zecora stepped before her.

“Fluttershy!” she cried out.

“Do not approach her bed, my friend,” said Zecora urgently.
“One touch might be enough to send
A curse upon your own back too;
And then whatever would we do?”

Yet even as she gaped at the pegasus on the covers, Twilight felt the stirrings of something calm and interested in the back of her head. Without even thinking, it began to pick apart the details forcing their way into her mind.

Overhead, a wide dish of a flower head swayed at the slightest shake. Petals splayed out from its brown and yellow dots, curving claw-like and shining silver. Black bud leaves bulged behind the flower like tumours, and along its woody stem, thorns peeked out promising ragged torment. Two of these plants waved in a sad mockery of upright wings, branching up from a bulging ball of bleached white. Bits of soil and mud splattered across the yellow fur.

Twilight’s gaze fell to the hairy roots. Some simply wrapped saddle-like around the midriff. The rest, though, plunged right through Fluttershy’s spine as cleanly as lake serpents undulating in still waters.

“It’s…” Fluttershy tried a small smile. “It’s not as painful as it looks.”

“What happened to you!?” cried out Spike, hopping off and running up to the side of the bed, ignoring Zecora’s protests. “Is it stuck there? Forever!?”

Without waiting for an answer, Twilight focused on her unicorn horn. Lights shimmered along its length. An answering aura bloomed around the plant, slipping down its stem to the roots and sliding along the hairs to her insides.

“Don’t worry!” She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll have this thing out in a second.”

Yet the instant she thought Tug, she heard Fluttershy yelp and saw her grit her teeth. Spike jumped backwards with a yell. The lights of magic vanished at once.

Panic rose up in her voice. “Fluttershy! I’m sorry!”

“I’m OK,” Fluttershy said weakly, rubbing her back to massage herself. “I think we left it too long, though.”

“I’ll try again.” Twilight lit her horn. “Maybe I just pulled too hard. Brace yourself.”

“I am afraid that she is right,” said Zecora, holding out a hoof before her face.
“You cannot pull with all your might;
The roots have spread too far inside,
And organs might be compromised.”

Behind them, a thump made them look round. Rainbow Dash marched across to them, wings folded tightly on her back. At the expression on her face, Twilight stepped aside hurriedly.

“Gosh darn it!” growled Rainbow Dash. “Now look what you’ve gotten yourself into! I told you, didn’t I?”

“Rainbow, calm down.” Twilight turned back to the bed, where her friend was hanging her head. “It’s OK. I’m here now. I’m going to get it off her.”

“It wouldn’t have been on her in the first place,” continued Rainbow, not looking away from the bed, “if she’d just listened.” She rounded on Twilight the instant they drew level. “Come on, Twilight. You’re the expert. Weird plant thingies growing on ponies’ backs. You gotta know something. You just gotta.”

“I can’t just solve it like that, Rainbow.” Twilight flinched at the look she was getting. Frantically, her mind flitted through the titles and covers she’d picked up over the years, over spellbooks, herbals, botanist catalogues, anything with a vaguely plant-like motif. “It could be anything. If I have a chance to diagnose it… I’d need some time to track down a reference, at least.”

Rainbow threw her wings up in the air. “Useless! So much for the eggheads.”

“Rainbow!” Twilight said, raising her voice. “Don’t be like that! I’m trying to help. It’s just… so sudden, that’s all.”

“OK, OK, I know.” Yet the glower never left her face. “Just do your thing. Don’t mind me. Sorry.”

You don’t look sorry. Still, Twilight took her respite and stepped around the pegasus, who about-turned to keep track of her.

Beside the bed, Spike reached up to prod the plant, but Zecora’s forelimb blocked his way. Twilight did not like the way he fidgeted, ringing his clawed hands together and pacing to and fro. I shouldn’t have let him come, she thought feverishly.

Zecora sighed and peered at the leaves splaying out every yard or so up the stems.

“I wish that I could solve this case;
A herbalist without a base
To work from is a sorry waste.
But I’m afraid I’ve never faced
A weed so clingy, dark, and strange;
I fear this fate cannot be changed.”

When she met Rainbow’s glare, however, she lowered her head and stepped out of range to check on the cauldron. Watching out of the corner of her eye, Twilight screwed up her lips in thought.

Why is Rainbow acting like this? She must know Zecora’s tried her best, but now she seems to snap at everyone. I’m sure I can help, but I just need time. Don’t worry, Rainbow. This’ll all be over soon.

I hope.

“Spike?” she said.

At once, he was by her side, quill and paper poised and ready. “Read your mind, Twilight! I know you’ve got a plan brewing. Just say the word.”

“Well, not a plan per se,” she began, but when his face fell and his arms slumped, she added, “but I have some suspicions. Take a note: wide umbrella-like flower head, dark coloration on capita, petals vaguely metallic. Notable outgrowths behind bud. Leaves appear to be cordate, estimated width across the base is two-fifty to three hundred millimetres, doubly serrate, conspicuous reticulate venation…”

“We’re wasting time,” groaned Rainbow in a strained voice. “We already know what it looks like.”

While she prattled on, slight beads of sweat began to prickle her brow. The small details were necessary, of course they were; when it came to botany and herbal remedies, the tiniest distinguishing trait could mean the difference between a cure for equine flu or six painful days of the trots. Still… perhaps she was being too pedantic…

Her keen eye focused on the swaying of the heads. She was sure something had caught her attention, but it might just have been a motion blur.

The scratching of quill against paper stopped. Spike’s jaw worked feverishly as his snout wrinkled with each gasp. He was straining against an upcoming sneeze.

Zecora and Twilight leaned away just before a jet of green flames spat between them and fizzled out, sparks vanishing inches above the plant’s heads. Fluttershy froze where she sat, suddenly pale.

“Sorry.” Spike rubbed his dribbling snout. “I don’t know what came over me.”

There! Just as she narrowed her eyes, Twilight saw the slight haze of dust each time the head trembled. Ha! The keen eye spots everything!

“It’s the plant.” Twilight’s horn aimed at Fluttershy. “Just hold still. We can’t let its pollen get on anyone. Who knows what might happen?”

The radiant ooze drifted from her horn, wrapping around Fluttershy as smoothly as a sentient blanket, closing up around her head and sliding over the plant. It flexed into a perfect purple outline, and then faded out of sight.

“What did you just do?” said Fluttershy at once. Her voice echoed slightly inside the customized bubble.

“Quarantine forcefield,” she said, aiming her horn at Zecora next. “Until we know more about this plant, we can’t take any chances. Someone else might get infected by those pollen grains. We just don’t know what it could do. In fact, it might be safer for everyone here to have one, just in case.”

“Good thinking,” said Rainbow while she glowed purple. “But… how’s Fluttershy supposed to breathe?”

Twilight opened her mouth for the explanation of how stomata located within the plasma-wall of the ethereal membrane operated similarly to the gatekeeper molecules of an organic cellular membrane, discriminating –

“It’s got little holes in it to let the air through,” said Spike at once. “Nothing else can fit, though.”

Twilight winced. “Not technically correct, Spike…” she began.

“So she’ll be able to breathe, right?” Rainbow sighed with relief. “You know, for a second, I wondered if you’d just jumped in without thinking it through.”

On the bed, Fluttershy slumped over the edge and rested her chin on her cannons. “I’d like to go home, please. My animal friends will be wondering what happened to me.”

“What did happen to you?” said Twilight, nodding towards Spike’s paper and quill to get him ready. “Normally, you don’t bother with the Everfree forest if you can help it.”

“I…” Fluttershy shifted her gaze downwards to her hooves. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

Her flickering glance was enough. Twilight followed it to Rainbow Dash, who was back to hovering overhead.

Rainbow shrugged, forelimbs folded and glare aimed at the wall. “Don’t look at me. She was like this when I got there.” Her glare refocused. “Ask her.”

And now Twilight turned her gaze to Zecora. The zebra steeled herself, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as though to rid her mind of unwanted thoughts.

“Dear Fluttershy was helping me,” she said,
“To search a part of Everfree
I normally would not frequent
But something there had wafted scent.
I can’t control all monsters met
While she can tame both beast and pet.
I thought she might negotiate
With any brute that lurked in wait.
I am afraid she helped me out
Too well, hence Rainbow’s angry pout.”

Still in midair, Rainbow rounded on her, limbs braced to pounce. “Well, why did you have to go out there in the first place? Now Fluttershy’s got some weed growing on her back, and for what?”

“Rainbow!” Twilight said sternly. She’s right, yelled a part of her mind still seeing the monstrosity blooming from her friend’s back, but she shushed it at once. “Don’t talk like that to Zecora! I’m sure she didn’t want this to happen, and Fluttershy agreed to do it. Um…” Fluttershy looked up at her. “You did agree, right?”

A small nod met her question.

She felt a tugging at her elbow, and looked down to Spike’s wide eyes. “Twilight, let’s get her home. We could figure out more stuff, you know, outside the Everfree.”

He’s shaking, she thought. He’s a dragon, but still just a baby dragon. There are things in the forest that don’t care about scaly hides or fiery breath. Maybe it would be best to get out of here. Oh, but I don’t want to be rude to Zecora.

“Twilight,” said Zecora at once, meeting her rising gaze as blankly as possible. “I think it would be best
To go to Ponyville and rest
Somewhere more welcoming than here.
Besides, your friends may feel your fear
And come support you. Leave me be.
I’ll try and seek a remedy.
And… I agree with Rainbow’s brief;
I am the cause of all this grief.”

“It sounds like an accident…” Twilight began, but Zecora narrowed her eyes so keenly that she added, “All right, all right. If you think it’s best. Come on, Fluttershy. Let’s get you home. The others will need to hear about this too. Hopefully, seven heads will be better than one.”

Yet Rainbow Dash burst out the door and vanished before Twilight and Spike could catch up with her. After Fluttershy slunk out the hut, Zecora slammed it after them.

From her back, Spike prodded her in the withers. “Do you get the sense that something else is going on here?”

“Let’s leave it for now, Spike,” she whispered. Behind them, Fluttershy trundled along the path and didn’t look up. Flower heads jangled with each step. Metal petals raked at the air almost hungrily.

Twilight’s face hardened. “First things first.”

Over by the dangling birdhouses, Fluttershy flipped the fronts open and applied her dusting cloth in and around the nests. Twilight flared her horn, and the shield thickened. The cloth flopped to the floorboards below.

“Oh,” said Fluttershy sadly, looking from her purple-tinged hoof to the cloth.

“Sorry, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, reinforcing the quarantine forcefield over herself. “I know it’s clumsy, but it’s the safest thing to do.”

One by one, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie seated themselves on the sofa and tried to ignore the rabbits, birds, and mice scurrying or flying about the den. Twilight glanced up: Rainbow Dash hovered over the table, forelimbs folded as though refusing to touch a thing. Another flare of Twilight’s horn, and the purple passed over the pegasus, who pretended not to notice.

Twilight glanced down: Spike held quill and paper at the ready, occasionally putting one down to sip at his glass of orange juice. He gave her the thumbs-up.

“Dear,” cooed Rarity, peering up at Fluttershy’s second attempted spring cleaning. “Won’t you come down and join us? You look ever so uncomfortable with that… thing on your back.”

Shudders went through Rarity and Applejack as the dark flowers bobbed slightly behind Fluttershy’s beating wings. Twilight suppressed the urge herself, but there was definitely a lot less cake being eaten as a result of the obvious bulge on her friend’s back.

Fluttershy shook her head. “I’m sure we’ll think of a way to get rid of this plant. In the meantime, I can’t let my little friends go without, just because of an accident.”

A disbelieving snort: Rainbow ignored the resulting stares until they gave up on her.

On the other hand, Pinkie was taking the opportunity to pile more cookies onto her plate. As her current pile was already spilling over the margins, this meant a little tidying up with her snatching jaws.

“Hey!” said Spike. “Leave some for me.”

“Sowwee,” said Pinkie around the obstruction. After gulping the cheekfuls down, she added, “I wouldn’t be eating them if everyone else had just taken them. Who wants to let good baking go to waste?”

“So,” said Applejack, swiftly taking the reins and the mug of cider, “what can we do? Ah mean, Ah’ll gladly help anyway Ah can, but Ah’m not sure how.”

Once Spike had scribbled down what he’d taken as the opening minutes, Twilight placed a hoof on the pile of books beside her. Beyond that, three smaller piles – one of which only contained a single volume – stood looking pathetic by comparison. Of course, she’d asked them to bring as many books on plants as possible, but somehow she’d been expecting this. Only Applejack’s meagre offerings had caught her by surprise; she’d assumed farmers were fascinated by herbs and exotic plants, but most of Applejack’s knowledge was, it turned out, up in her head.

“First of all,” said Twilight, “we need to identify the species if we can. The better we can pin it down, the better our chances of finding a cure. You know all about strange plants from your time on the farm, don’t you?”

Applejack quaffed her cider, scattering mice on the headrest when the gobs of green juice went for them. “Sorry. Ah can’t help much. Ah only know the stuff when it comes to crops an’ weeds. Granny Smith might know it, but somehow Ah doubt it.”

“Allow me, Twilight.” Rarity slipped daintily off her seat and whistled to Fluttershy, who spun round from her latest attempt at picking up the cloth. “Fluttershy, dear. Would you let me have a look at that… thing?”

“Great idea, Rarity,” said Spike, lowering his paper. “If anyone’s got an eye for the small stuff, it’s definitely you.”

Really, Spike? Now? Twilight rolled her eyes. She’d never say a word against him if she could help it, but there was a definite sense of preening and muscle-flexing whenever he was in the same room as Rarity.

Still, it is a good idea after all. “Anything?” she said when Fluttershy landed beside the table.

Nothing was said for a while. Rarity’s horn shimmered. She flexed the stem hither and thither, narrowing her eyes at every wrinkle, every vein of the leaves, and finally every glint of the curved petals.

“Interesting,” she murmured. “Twilight, look at this one.”

Twilight peered closely at the head flexed her way. There didn’t seem to be anything at first, so she looked up with eyebrow raised.

“Right in the middle.” Rarity prodded the spot with a stretched leg. “Small red triangle with a hole in it. You see it?”

“Careful,” said Applejack quickly. “You don’t wanna prod the shield thingy.”

“The shield’s fine,” said Twilight with a dismissive wave.

Now that she knew what she was looking for, Twilight could definitely see a red speck in the centre of each petal. A pop in the air beside her, and the summoned magnifying glass leaned in. Under its swollen sheen, the scarlet “A” was clearly visible.

“Excellent,” she said, curling the lot down to Spike’s level. “This could be an important clue.”

Rarity nodded graciously and sat back down, levitating her steaming hot cocoa for a genteel sip.

When Twilight glanced up, Rainbow was looking away again, still cross-limbed, still sullenly glaring. You can’t still be mad at Zecora, can you? Even here?

“Is that part of the soil?” said Pinkie suddenly. She hopped forwards, peering closely at the splatter on Fluttershy’s back. “It’s all white and flaky.”

“Looks like chalk.” Applejack nodded. “Could be another clue, but Ah don’t deal with chalk all that often. Soil usually takes care of itself around Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Allow me,” said Pinkie, and she stretched forwards and licked a few flecks off Fluttershy’s side.

As one, Twilight, Spike, and Rarity winced. Even Applejack widened her eyes. Unheeding, Pinkie smacked her lips and hummed and tried to peer at her own fringe.

Thankfully, she stuck out her tongue and smacked the offending white off with both hooves. “Blech! Blarrgh! Ptooe! That is not chalk. I don’t even want to know what that is.”

“You ate it,” said Rarity accusingly.

“Well yeah. I used to eat rocks all the time back home. It made it easier if you couldn’t tell what you’d just dug up. I mean, can you imagine all the arguing and fighting there’d be if we couldn’t taste what rock it was? Talk about riot!”

Rarity’s face was slightly greener than usual. “I’ll… take your word for it.”

Twilight decided not to ask how Pinkie’s tongue had somehow phased through the forcefield. She’d long ago granted the mare a quota for explanation-free behaviours, and this was barely a drop in the bucket compared with previous payments.

However, the mare was not content to stop at one. Pinkie peered up at the still-silent Rainbow Dash, cocking her head idly.

“And what’s eatin’ you, Rainbow Dash?” she said. It wasn’t a mean question; she just had a way of asking that suggested she’d be quite happy to keep asking over and over until the script moved to the next line.

For once, Rainbow granted them an unabashed glower, which melted even as they watched. Twilight noticed the way she glanced from face to face.

“I’m… just… thinking,” she lied, in that special “trying to be subtle” voice that deceived nobody. “About the Wonderbolts events coming up. I mean, what am I supposed to do here?”

Applejack shrugged and quaffed, driving away the mice that had ventured forth again. “You were actually there, Rainbow. You tell us.”

“I told you. When I got there, the thing was already on her back.” Rainbow shrugged, still with forelimbs folded.

“But there must have been something!” Twilight snapped. “Maybe the type of deciduous tree species was noticeably oak-like, or the ground was marshy and wet. We need clues, Rainbow!”

“I said,” growled Rainbow Dash, “when I got there, it was on her back.”

“Rainbow! You’ve been in a mood ever since you came and fetched me!”

Rainbow drew her limbs back as though for a pounce. “What are you having a go at me for? I got her out of there as fast as I could. It’s just Everfree forest all over. Excuse me if I didn’t stop in the middle of a crisis to check what colour the grass was!”

Before Twilight could begin her retort, she got a tap on the shoulder. Fluttershy was standing behind her, nodding towards the Dutch door at the front of her cottage.

“Fluttershy?”

“Can I have a word, please?” she said. The words were tight and yet gentle, like an arm around the nape: potentially jovial, but still in a good position to squeeze.

She bowed to the others, muttering her “excuse me’s”, and pushed the bottom door aside. Wordlessly, Twilight followed her out, past the welcome mat and a little way around the burrows and overgrown shrubbery. Once shielded from the rest of the cottage, Fluttershy swung round – making the two flowers tremble like crazy – and sighed.

“What’s going on between you two?” said Twilight at once, but the unmoving expression told her this wasn’t the right opener. “Look, I don’t want to upset Rainbow, but –”

“I understand,” said Fluttershy, nodding. “You’re only trying to help, and I’m grateful. Really, I am.”

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Twilight glanced up at the petals, wincing with each sway of the thorny stems.

“Not as much now as it did. I think it’s settling down.” Fluttershy ignored the blue jay that perched on her mane, which glowed purple where it touched. “Rainbow Dash is just frustrated, and as much as she refuses to admit it, she’s a little frightened too. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it sooner or later, but I think you should wait until she feels ready to tell you.”

“Can you tell me what happened, then?” Twilight pleaded. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what the problem is in the first place.”

For the first time that day, Fluttershy blushed and pawed at the ground. Twilight felt half of her mind relaxing. This was more like the pegasus caretaker she knew of old.

“It’s my fault,” she murmured to the shrubbery. “I… Oh, Rainbow Dash is right. I should have listened to her when she told me what to do, but all I could think about was how far from my animals I was, and then we went into a clearing I’d never seen before… and then…” She groaned and, if anything, blushed hard enough to glow. “I messed it all up.”

“Oh, Fluttershy…” Twilight’s eyebrows creased with concern. To her distaste, a needling part of her lit up and muttered, Then why does Rainbow Dash blame Zecora?

“You won’t pester Rainbow Dash about it, will you?” said Fluttershy, and the needling part added, Look, she’s changing the subject!

Shut up! Maybe Fluttershy’s right. She’s known Rainbow Dash longer than any of us. If Rainbow does open up, we can get this solved peacefully.

Twilight sliced her horn down with the sternness of her nod. “Oh, all right. I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.”

This seemed to satisfy Fluttershy, who beamed and nodded. Ignoring the blue jay taking off from her head, she peered round, and Twilight noticed, as she followed her friend’s gaze, a lush flowerbed just a few feet away.

It brought a burning blush to her face, but Twilight had never been particularly good at flowers. She knew just enough to tell the most common species apart, like daisies and dandelions, but anything beyond that was a random nothing to her. Which made her blush all the hotter, because she’d memorized over a thousand species names, habits, biogeographical distributions, and life cycle classifications. Somehow, the neat and tidy ordering in the books failed to match up with the chaotic meadows and random specimens of real life.

Hanging over the rainbow explosion of the flowerbed were a row of sunflowers, one of the few she could match up perfectly. And, well, they were sunflowers…

“I’ve been thinking,” said Fluttershy suddenly.

Twilight fell from her burning thoughts and cooled, as though all concentration and emotion had just had the plug pulled on them. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, look at where the sun is,” said Fluttershy, pointing her wing roughly westwards with a creak of the plant’s roots. “The sunflowers always greet it in the morning, and that got me thinking. Now watch the plant on my back. I noticed this when I went to check on the bunnies just now.”

After Twilight focused on the plant, Fluttershy turned on the spot, now facing away from her and slightly towards the cottage. One moment, the two flowers bobbed and shivered as though on wobbly springs. Then, while she watched, the flower heads swivelled. Brilliant light caught on their petals, making her blink, but once she’d rubbed the afterglow out of her eyes, the petals were now facing the sun. There was a slight heat haze above each one.

Twilight sighed with relief, even ignoring the silent tut of her own mind as she did so. That was a lot more promising. Pages of writing flicked through her mind at the word that had just dropped in unannounced: Heliotropism!

“You see?” said Fluttershy, turning back. “They must be trying to get as much sunlight as they can. Maybe that’s another clue?”

Slight woody groans met their ears; the two flower heads swivelled back, trying to outstare the sun.

“And they look a bit like sunflowers,” continued Fluttershy eagerly. “So maybe that means they’re a kind of sunflower.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” said Twilight, who couldn’t stop smiling. “Homology isn’t as straightforward as all that. For all we know, it could be a case of convergent” – she stopped at Fluttershy’s glazed-over stare – “I mean, it might not be related, it just might look similar because they’re trying to do similar things.”

“Oh, I see,” said Fluttershy. “You mean because they both follow the sunlight.”

I really must write a book correcting all these misconceptions, Twilight thought with a sigh, though her inner scholar looked up gleefully and clapped her hooves together at the prospect. Fully grown sunflowers DON’T follow the sun every day. Only the growing ones do that, as was clearly discovered and described by Solar Flora two hundred years ago! Yeesh!

“Besides,” she said, guiltily pretending not to have thought all that, “I’ve never heard of a parasitic sunflower before. Oh, who am I kidding?”

Twilight scraped her hoof across her forehead. It was like running through a maze in her brain, except too many passages were blocked off by ignorance and dead-end enquiries, and others kept looping back to the start.

“I’ve never even heard of a zoocentrically parasitic plant before. All the books say that all the parasitic plants parasitize other plants, or fungi at best! No animal’s ever been infected by one, certainly not a pony. And even if there had been one, we’ve got too many other factors to consider. I don’t know if it’s an obligate or a facultative parasite, whether you’re simply its intermediate host or its final one, how complex its life cycle is – I don’t even know what group it belongs to other than Angiospermae, and even that’s just a superficial guess – and it doesn’t fit either ectoparasite or endoparasite classifications because it’s on your skin and under your skin at the same time, and the worst part is it could easily be a parasitoid –”

“Twilight!”

Twilight blinked and ran down until she could feel a gentle hoof on her shoulder. Myriad pages and speeches faded away. Around her, the calm birdsong returned.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said, shaking her mane thoroughly. “It’s just… I don’t know where I should start.”

“How do you usually start, then?” Fluttershy looked down at the beady eyes and shiny noses peeking out of burrows.

By knowing exactly what I need to know. “Well, I try to get as much data as possible. Bring to bear as many facts as I can remember.”

“Then you can just do that, can’t you?”

Oh, Fluttershy. You think it’s so simple, don’t you? But it’s not. All the books are field guides and nature studies and scientific catalogues. They only have raw information, and what we’re looking for could be anywhere. It’s not like asking Rarity for a vague kind of dress and getting, “Oh, you mean a silver-laced ballroom gown with puffed sleeves and some mirror velvet accents for the hemline?” I’m going to need luck as much as a good eye for skimming pages.

Twilight glanced up at the shimmering flowers and the dead tatters of the stems. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Fluttershy clicked her tongue, and the peeking faces disappeared down their burrows. “That’s OK. No one can ask any more than that from you. Wanna go back inside? I can get some tea and cakes for you while you work.”

When they got back inside, Rainbow and Applejack were trying to talk over each other, which was made all the harder by the birds and mice chirping and squeaking in alarm. Between them, Pinkie’s cheeks bulged while her gaze bounced back and forth like a tennis ball. Rarity sipped her drink and pretended not to notice her ears curling under the decibels.

“Ah’m jus’ sayin’ Ah don’t think it’s that simple,” said Applejack stoutly. “This ain’t no ordinary plant!”

“How can you say that when no one’s tried it yet!?” Rainbow thumped a hoof onto the ergot of her other forelimb like a fist on a palm. “If we keep throwing ideas away before we’ve tried them, we’ll end up missing something!”

“What’s going on?” said Fluttershy over the noise.

Both Applejack and Rainbow Dash fell silent as she approached. Pinkie swallowed her mouthful.

“Oh,” said Rarity coolly. “We were just discussing the pros and cons of traditional strategies against” – she winced and looked away from the plant – “troublesome weeds.”

“Why not try weedkiller?” said Rainbow Dash. “We can’t pull it out, but we can make sure it’s not going to take over.”

“Take it from a farmer,” Applejack said, stiffening up again. “You can’t just spray willy-nilly an’ expect it to do what you want it to do. You gotta think firs’. What about Fluttershy, for a start? She might get poisoned.”

“She’s got a plant on her back! It’s gotta be worth a try!”

“Maybe,” Pinkie piped up suddenly, “it’s a magical plant, and you have to do something crazy so that it lets go. I could try singing to it, or maybe you have to wear polka dot pyjamas before you pull it out. Ooh, ooh! Maybe if we ask it nicely, it’ll pop right out!”

That silenced both of them at once. The lot of them were half-chewing over her words and half-astonished at themselves for even taking it seriously enough to do so. Pinkie took advantage of the thoughtful silence to ram another plateful of muffins into her mouth.

Twilight felt the sweat dribble down her temples. A normal plant’s going to be hard enough, but a magical one too? Suddenly, the pile of books looked like junk sale rejects compared with the library now demanding to be read. I’d have to go to the Canterlot Archives just to get a hope of finding the right one…

“No need to worry!” said Spike quickly; around him, the mares jolted out of their encroaching nightmares. “I could bring over the lab kit and we could set up right here after we’ve cleaned up. I don’t think there’s a point to looking at all those books until we’ve looked at the plant properly. That should narrow it down, right Twilight?”

He sure does know me, she thought while she grinned at him. “Excellent thinking, Spike. We’ve got a good start, but if there’s one thing we need, it’s the right tools and as many measurements as we can get. If it is a magical plant, then I should be able to determine its Clover-Meadowflower Index with a bit of thaumospectroscopic analysis.”

“RRRRight,” said Spike, not quite convincingly. “And we can find out what it’s doing. Maybe, when we know what it wants, we could, I dunno, bribe it off of Fluttershy or something.”

“It’s an idea,” was all Twilight could concede. “Er… if you don’t mind, of course, Fluttershy?”

“Not at all, if you think it’ll help.”

Above the table and their heads, the birds zipped to and fro; a few stopped to hover and tweet at the top of their little lungs. Rather discreetly, Rarity covered her mug with a hoof.

“Ah’ll ask Granny Smith an’ see what she knows,” said Applejack. “You never know.”

Pinkie yanked Rarity closer, making her squeal as the hot cocoa slopped onto the carpet. “And we can ask around Ponyville, you know, and see what they know. You never know what other ponies know, you know what I’m sayin’, non?”

“Pinkie!” gasped the unicorn. “You’re choking me!”

“Good thinking.” Twilight said. “And how about –?”

She turned to Rainbow Dash, or rather to where Rainbow Dash had been. Empty air was all that was left.

All of them glanced around, except for Rarity, who finally tugged herself out of the unintentional headlock.

“Where’d she go?” said Applejack.

“Knowing Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity, irritably stroking the renegade strands of her mane back into shape, “she’s most likely had a bright idea and declined to stay and explain it. Oh, I wish you’d be careful, Pinkie!”

Spike cried out, jaw stretching, nostrils splaying, and snout crumpling. At once, every pony ducked down before the jet of green ripped through the air over their heads and vanished. Birds shot back into their dangling houses, which rocked slightly against the slight convection.

Twilight’s heart peeked out of her gape, and then crept back down her throat. Green dribbled down Spike’s face, but he wiped it on the back of his clawed hand.

“I’m OK,” he said. “I guess that pollen must’ve done a number on my nose.” He noticed the slight black chrysanthemum high on the wall. “Sorry, Fluttershy. I’ll clean it up, I swear.”

A collective sigh of relief signalled the return of eating and drinking, though a few gazes drifted towards the dragon. Twilight could almost hear their minds squeaking under the effort of worry.

Maybe it would be worth checking on Rainbow Dash, she thought. I know what Fluttershy said, but I don’t have to ask right away. If she knows anything, I can’t let her hide it from us. Not that she’s hiding anything about the plant. She’d never do that to Fluttershy. I’m… sure of it.

However, she found herself watching Spike, who’d stuffed a muffin into his mouth with much humming and tummy-rubbing. Cold drops trickled down her back as she saw him there, oozing green mucus and smoking slightly from one nostril, all those years ago.

She shook the image out of her head and swallowed. That was different. This time, we’re working together. I’ve got my friends. And I’m not the clueless filly I used to be. We’ll figure this out. We have to.

Still, she ducked the same as everyone when he stiffened to sneeze. This time, it didn’t come. Even when he relaxed again, no one stopped glancing in his direction until Fluttershy waved them off cheerfully and closed the Dutch door after them.

“You know what I think?” whispered Spike while the others were thus occupied. “I think we might have a friendship problem on our hands.”

“I agree,” she whispered back, “but let’s just keep that between ourselves for now. It won’t help anyone if we make it worse by prying.”

“Of course. My lips are sealed.” He mimicked zipping his mouth and winked up at her, pausing only to wipe more mucus off his face. “Still, could be worth looking into, don’t you think?”

She tried not to wince. “Later, Spike.”

And I’ll go with him to get the equipment, Twilight thought, rubbing her forehead and sighing. Just in case.

Investigations

Ferns and bracken snagged on their manes and tails as they pushed through. Fluttershy flapped on ahead, wisely keeping clear of the muddy turf. Twilight considered following her example. Every step, she either got pierced by thorns or had to grit her teeth against branches trying to pull her hair.

“Ow,” she said. “Ah! Ow! Oooooow! Is it much – ow – further?”

“We’re almost there,” said Fluttershy. Somehow, she seemed perfectly at ease with bits of leaf and twigs in her pink curls. “This is the exact route we took.”

Behind them, Applejack squelched through the mud but was otherwise silent.

Fluttershy pushed a mare-sized frond out of the way. The greenery up ahead was definitely lighter, owing to the clearing which they now stepped into. Twilight and Applejack cleared the perimeter and slid down the bank, Twilight spinning slightly on the mud at the bottom, Applejack leaping and straightening up with ease.

“Well,” she drawled, eyeing up the blue hole above them, “Ah sure hope we have better luck than Granny Smith, ‘cause if even she an’ Big Mac an’ Apple Bloom put together can’t tell what this thing is” – she pointed to the two flowers on Fluttershy’s back, which were staring up at the sky – “then we’re stuck.”

“Just keep that rope ready,” whispered Twilight.

“Want an apple?” Applejack rummaged through one of her saddlebags, adjusting the rope coiled around her chest like a bandolier. “Got some sweet Galas tucked away here. Might steady your nerves.”

“I’m not nervous!” Twilight stiffened at a distant howl.

She glanced up at Fluttershy, who shrugged. “Timberwolves. Don’t worry. They’re not hunting yet. We should be safe from them.”

“Good.” Sensing this was slightly squeakier than she’d intended, Twilight added in a deeper voice, “Besides, we won’t be here long. If we can gather some clues from the scene of the crime, then we can solve this thing a little more quickly.”

“Suit yourself,” said Applejack. Crunching soon followed. Whatever she said next achieved little more than spraying red and yellow everywhere.

“OK, Fluttershy,” Twilight began, and then she blinked and looked around.

Not that she was sure what to expect, but this muddy patch wasn’t it. Where the trees stopped and the clearing took over, the familiar ferns and grasses and bushes stopped too. The entire area was a pit, struck by a gigantic mud bomb and then smothered violently with brown ooze that shone where puddles had risen through the surface. Stretch lines and swirls tracked the unseen forces that had lightly slid across and around.

Only one part stood out. Right in the centre, a massive rift had thrown aside folds of mud like flesh and skin. Bits of it curled around and back onto the muddy ground. Splattered chunks spread out on one side. Had a lone tree been violently uprooted, this would have been the result.

Feeling she already knew the answer, she asked, “So that’s where it was?”

Overhead, Fluttershy leaned in closer. “Yes, but it didn’t look like this. There was supposed to be a ridge right here. I remember the plant growing on it, but the ridge should still be there.”

“Do you remember any distinguishing characteristics?” Twilight held her breath; now she was close enough to kneel over it, the rift exuded a smell that scoured her nasal chambers.

“Yes. After the plant was gone, I saw white lines poking through the mud. I thought there was a boulder underneath, but then…” She gestured to her back, where the two flowers bobbed at her slight trembling.

Quill and paper popped into existence beside Twilight. She started scribbling, though she doubted they were going to get much from this visit. Not that I’m scared or anything, she thought, but it’d be best to get back to the cottage as soon as possible. To, er, continue tests. Yeah, that’s it.

Around the rift was a smattering of dots. They were not much further out than a couple of pony-sized steps, but none of them followed the splattered mud. Instead, they had scattered across the opposite side like flecks of black paint.

“That's funny.” Twilight stepped around the rift and peered closer at the dots. Horn aglow, she thought, Lift.

Black cinders rose out of each hole, aglow with her purple magic. Twisted and shrivelled as they were, they seemed slightly too heavy for their size, like picking up rice as heavy as marbles. To her surprise, the glow cut out. They fell onto the mud again, punching new pits into it.

“Fascinating.” Twilight summoned the black cinders again, only for the glow to cut out once more. “Why can't I pick them up? The spell's fine, so it must be some kind of anti-magic. Or perhaps these are fragments of the boulder, exhibiting its own magical properties? Some magical stones can overpower unicorn spells under the right conditions, but I'd need to check.”

Applejack strode up to them. “Ah reckon we should be headin’ back. Granny told me about places like this. Devil’s Gardens, she called ‘em.”

“D-D-Devil’s G-G-Gardens?” stammered Fluttershy. Another howl arced into the sky, making her squeak before it died away. She landed with a squelch.

Twilight leaned forwards and peered down the rift. There was just more mud in the boulder-sized pit. Applejack nudged her and pointed; opposite the black cinders, drag marks ran from the rift. They focused again; through the middle of the drag marks, a thin line had been cut right through the mud as though with a knife.

“So long as we’re ready,” whispered Twilight, “we shouldn’t have any problems with the forest. Er. I think.”

Another howl followed. By unspoken consent, the three of them backed into each other.

Now she knew what she was looking for, the thin line didn’t cut right through to the edge of the clearing. Instead, it curled around and followed the perimeter, shot behind her, and was followed all the way by a slight groove which the boulder must have carved out.

How strange, she thought. A boulder should’ve left more signs of its weight. Besides, why would an Everfree creature want to eat a boulder? Chalk, I could understand. In fact, parrots and elephants eat clay after all, which detoxifies the plant poisons and provides much-needed nutritional supplem –

Look, can I do this theorizing at a safer distance? cut in the part of her that was trying to slow her heart down. As in, somewhere not here?

“Uh oh,” whispered Fluttershy. As one, the others spun around to look.

Slicing through the mud, the scimitar-shaped fin cleared the perimeter and slid straight towards them. Brown blotches covered red flesh.

They watched it approach for a few seconds. Twilight’s horn flared. The air whipped with Applejack’s swinging rope. Fluttershy took off and hovered over the pair.

“What is it?” Twilight whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

“B-B-Bull T-T-Tiger Shark,” Fluttershy whispered back.

And now the thing drew closer, she could indeed spot the black stripes beneath the mud patches. Twilight opened her mouth to ask what its next move most likely would –

Water and slop exploded before them. By the time Twilight stopped screaming, the bull horns ploughed through the rising muck and came screeching down, the tiger-striped torpedo flexing while its meat cleaver teeth stretched out of the gums.

A smack sent it flipping backwards. Briefly, the dome shield shimmered purple and rippled where it had struck. Then, the lump splashed on the mud and vanished under another explosion of water and slop, which splattered. Gobs of brown struck the surface and occasionally the shield.

The fin poked through and shot towards them. Then it slowed down.

Finally, it curled around and shot for the cover of the trees. Rustling leaves marked its passage until they too died away.

No one breathed. Applejack’s lasso continued to swish and twirl. Far away, some prehistoric moan rolled over the canopy. A flock of bat-like creatures briefly slashed across the sky.

Applejack, Fluttershy, and Twilight gave a single, collective “phew”.

“They w-weren’t here l-last t-t-time,” Fluttershy murmured. “A-Applejack? Wh-What did Granny Smith s-say ex-xactly about D-Devil’s G-Gardens?”

They didn’t see how she did it, but a blur and a whip-crack later, Applejack had the rope coiled around her again. “Nothin’ good, Ah’m afraid. She said in the olden days, there used to be empty patches in a forest where only one tree or one dark flower grew. So the story goes, the dark plant done a deal with Nightmare Moon, makin’ sure nothin’ else would grow where it din’t want ‘em to. She told me to keep clear of ‘em.”

“Really?” said Fluttershy. A weak chuckle indicated that it was probably a bit late to be hearing this now.

“What else did she say?” Twilight twitched at a rustling and shot a glance at the edge.

“Well, this other time she told it differently. Legend had it that Nightmare Moon used to go around plantin’ the seeds specially, an’ that she wanted to show her sister who was the better gardener. Her shadowy powers are what makes ‘em so evil when they sprout. Ah mean, Ah don’t believe any of it myself. Ah jus’ thought Granny was making up stories to stop me wanderin’ off.”

Insect-like chirps poked at their ears.

“Makes you think, though,” Applejack added.

“Yes. I think we ought to go back now,” said Fluttershy.

“Not yet,” piped up Twilight. “Applejack? The evidence bag, if you please.”

“Is that what they’re called? Ah thought you jus’ forgot to pack a lunch or somethin’.” Applejack slung the saddlebags off and plonked them onto the ground, ignoring the slight splash.

Twilight levitated a chunk of mud from inside the pit, and then scooped up a patch containing the black cinders. Ah well, she thought, we need what we can get. A clue’s a clue. And yes, I think we ought to go back now.

“Like, right now,” insisted Fluttershy.

“Just a sec.” Twilight placed the mud inside the evidence bag and lowered it into Applejack’s saddlebag. “We could be missing an important clue that, to the untutored eye, would seem insignifi –”

“Look!”

They followed her pointing hoof to the other end of the clearing, where a dozen curving fins poured out of the forest.

Saddlebags smacked back over Applejack. Rope sizzled under friction. Fluttershy rose higher while Twilight’s horn flared and the purple shield blazed into view. All fins closed in, a crescent of strange fangs aching to bite.

The leading pair exploded out of the mud, bull horns aglow. Fluttershy backed so fast she hit the shield. Both sharks stretched their maws almost into complete circles. Both pairs of horns flared.

The instant the sharks phased through the shield, Twilight barely had time to yell when the rope snagged at their heads and yanked them sideways. Thrashing bodies crashed into the mud, fighting against the lasso’s tangle. Behind the obstruction in her mouth, Applejack yelled two words.

Twilight focused. Throw, she thought.

Both glowing sharks hurdled out of the shield. Barely had they crashed, however, when four more rammed against the lower slopes of the dome, cracking it. Twilight gritted her teeth. Every crack barely healed when the four shot into it again, smashing new ones into existence.

“This is really odd,” said Fluttershy as though commenting on rain during a scheduled sunny day. “Bull Tiger Sharks always hunt alone or in pairs.”

“Not the time, Fluttershy!” Twilight caught two more leaping sharks and threw them as far across the clearing as her straining head would allow. Magic drops dripped from her forehead.

“No, I mean look!”

Once more, they followed her pointing hoof. The four rammed the shield again, yet around them the rest of the fins scythed onwards, curling around the obstruction or ignoring it entirely. Twilight glanced around to watch them speed onwards, into the forest.

“Twi!” Applejack yelled.

Four horned heads smashed through the shield, ducked back down into the mud, and slalomed between their legs. Twilight lowered the rest of the shield before they reached it, and all four fins carried on to the edge of the clearing, cut into the soil, and disappeared.

Another explosion: two stragglers arced over their heads from behind, horns aglow, evidently expecting a shield. Instead, they eclipsed the sky, ploughed into the mud, and, under a thrash of tails, vanished.

“They must be scared out of their minds,” said Fluttershy, shaking her head. “Poor things.”

Applejack spat the rope out. “Poor things!? Good gravy, Fluttershy. You can feel sorry for anythin’, can’t ya?”

“I wonder what’s got them spooked,” murmured Twilight, though a part of her agreed fervently with Applejack: currently the part of her knocking her knees together. At least two of the sharks had given her deeply unwanted views down their throats.

Fluttershy rose higher, clearing the canopy. She was looking at where the sharks had come from.

“See anythin’?” yelled Applejack.

Returning, Fluttershy shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

“Well, Ah vote we don’t stick around to find out. Could be more of them things lurkin’ around too.”

“I agree. We should have enough to be going on with,” said Twilight.

Hooves squelched on mud. She followed Applejack and Fluttershy to the edge again. None of them spoke on the way through the brambles and thorn bushes, except for the occasional “ow” whenever Twilight hit her head on a branch.

Pinkie’s head popped out of the mouse hole. For reasons Twilight really didn’t want to know about, the puffy mane was half-buried under a miner’s helmet. She also had patches of dirt on her cheeks.

“Uh,” said Twilight, leaning over the arm of the sofa. “Have you found out anything yet, Pinkie?”

“No sign of any light at the end of the tunnel yet, sir!” Pinkie said, poking enough forelimb through for a complex salute. Twilight recoiled at the pickaxe casually held between hoof and pastern. “But we’ll keep looking. Gummy’s got them working like slaves down here.”

This is definitely pushing her quota, Twilight thought. All I asked her to do was dig around for information. Do I really, really want to ask anything else?

“Listen,” she whispered, “if there’s anyone who might know anything – anyone at all – please, please, please don’t overlook them. We’re going to be at the end of our rope if the florists don’t come through.”

Another salute greeted these words. “Will keep digging, general commander captain sir! That rope won’t have a chance with my boys and girls tunnelling away. You betcha life on it.”

With a wink, the pink head popped into the dark hole again, her helmet clattering and spinning on the floor. A whip of a pink leg, and it too disappeared. Some angry rodent inside the hole squealed and cursed.

Sitting up on the sofa, Twilight sipped her levitating mug and scribbled notes down in the journal. Occasionally, she heard the clatter and metallic clanks of Spike emptying the box outside the cottage window. The blinds were drawn.

Calmly, she watched the three mares standing against the opposite side of the table. Already, they’d had to turn the lights on; the sky outside was darkening to dusk, and all of Fluttershy’s critters had vanished into various birdhouses and boltholes. Seven mugs steamed with hot cocoa on the tabletop.

“You’re sure you can’t see anything this time?” said Rarity. When she magically tugged the flower lower, Fluttershy winced.

Daisy the earth mare flinched, but steeled herself long enough to run a one-eyed gaze over the pollen grains hitting the tight shield. Behind her, Roseluck and Lily Valley lay where they’d fainted a few minutes ago. Watching the plant’s hairy roots strain and stretch around the wings, Twilight couldn’t say she blamed the two ponies.

“Hmmm,” said the only conscious florist.

Daisy reached forwards and twisted the flower head this way and that. She pressed an ear against it and shook it. She did a complete circuit around Fluttershy, who blushed at all the attention. Finally, she sat back down again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I still say the closest match is a sunflower.”

“But it’s dark and thorny!” wailed Rarity. Released from her telekinetic grip, the plant swung upwards, making Fluttershy grunt and wince. “And those red ‘A’ markings on the petals must mean something! You told me you were the experts!”

“We are,” Daisy snapped. “What we’re not is miracle-workers. Me and the girls have worked with flowers all our lives, from Abelia honeysuckles to Zygopetalum orchids. I know a fair bit about the Everfree plants… well, the ones on the edge, anyway” – she chuckled nervously – “I mean obviously, I wouldn’t dare actually go in, not if I could help it.”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Rarity said with a sigh. “I remember you when we were at school together. You were a devil for running off with that Goldengrape colt whenever you got the chance –”

“Shhh!” hissed Daisy, throwing Twilight a grin with pleading eyes attached. “Look, my point is we don’t have a clue what that, that, that thing is supposed to be.” She glanced at Fluttershy and her face went green. “Sunflower is my best guess. I’m sorry. What else can I say?”

“Let’s go along with that hypothesis for a moment.” Twilight stopped jotting down notes. “If it is a member of the genus Helianthus, then what would you recommend as the most effective means of displacing it?”

Beaming at the chance not to look at the plant or at Rarity’s raised eyebrow, Daisy swung around. “Easy. Cut their heads off first. Then it’s a straightforward uprooting. They’re not difficult to get rid of if you really want to. The only thing you really need to be careful of is that you don’t leave any roots or bits behind, but once you’ve got the root ball out, that’s not a problem.”

“So why cut their heads off first?”

“Seeds. You absolutely cannot let a single seed escape, because if even one of them gets into the soil, you’ll be getting the secateurs out again a year later. Assuming they’re not perennials, of course, which most of the weed species almost certainly will be.”

“Great,” muttered Fluttershy. She screwed up her face when Rarity yanked both flowers down.

“I know that red mark is a clue,” Rarity insisted. “Give it another look.”

“I’m sorry!” Daisy yelped and almost tripped over her fallen comrades. “I can’t be of much help! If it’s magical, then I’m at the end of my book. I’m sorry!”

Twilight took another sip; in the silence, her mug clinked against the table loud as a bell. Perhaps now might be a good time to steer things away from stormy waters.

“Rarity, she’s trying her best. Please continue, Daisy. We’ve already tried pulling it out, you see, but it doesn’t seem to want to come out.”

“Have you tried digging it out at the roots?” said Daisy, and then she blanched under the two glares from Rarity and Fluttershy. “I was only asking. Or… or failing that, you could give it to the known pests.”

“Biological control?” Twilight scribbled faster.

“Exactly. We keep all kinds of sunflower moths and sunflower beetles in case anyone needs them, and there’s always grasshoppers. We always have grasshoppers. You’d be amazed how many problems can be solved or caused by grasshoppers.”

Twilight skewed her jaw thoughtfully. “But you’re florists. Why would you keep well-known pests?”

Daisy winked at her. “Gardening is like any form of artwork. Sometimes, it needs editing. Besides, it’s better to have the pests under our control than roaming wild and unchecked.”

“And you signed the pledge with the Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures,” added Fluttershy sternly.

A hunted look crossed Daisy’s face. “Y-Yes,” she murmured. “Th-That too.”

“I made sure everyone in town did,” Fluttershy said, rather too sweetly. “It’s not nice to leave them out or to mistreat them just because they don’t please us ponies. Every creature has the right to a lovely and comfortable life.”

Twilight squirmed where she sat. True, it does help that she can negotiate with any known pests, and maybe in a theoretical meta-ethical sense, she’s on to something.

Still, she could feel the awkward questions rising in her mind. They were questions that no one in Ponyville dared to ask, since no one knew how Fluttershy fit into the local ecosystem, especially where sharp teeth and bloodsuckers were involved. Even Twilight didn’t fancy an afternoon receiving a lecture about it. It would be like being savaged by a breeze.

Catching Twilight’s eye, Rarity let go of the plant, ignored the grunt behind her, and bowed her head low. “Very well. It seems we’ve gotten all we need. Thank you for your time, Daisy. Would you like some help escorting your friends home? I’d be willing to oblige.”

“Thanks,” said Daisy brightly.

“Oh, no need for that.” Fluttershy whistled. Outside, Spike’s clanking and clattering stopped as thundering footsteps closed in. “My animal friends can help you carry them home safe and sound.”

“Uh…” said Daisy, considerably less brightly than before. A shadow crossed the window briefly. Something growled.

Fluttershy whistled again. “It’s all right. It’s only Harry.”

“Harry’s…” Daisy squeaked, gaze darting to the window, “a bear?”

“Uh huh. Isn’t he cute and cuddly?”

A gulp. “He’s a giant… big-fanged… muscle-y… grizzly bear, by any chance?”

Fluttershy tittered into her hoof. “Oh bless you, no! Lots of ponies think that, but he was actually the runt of the family. You should see his litter brothers Paddy and Winnipeg. Oh my.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “They grow up so fast.”

The door opened. Harry the bear loomed as only a grizzly bear could and roared happily in greeting at the assembled guests.

Daisy fainted.

Once Rarity had levitated the three prone bodies out the door and waved off the growling, smiling bear – which tried to poke its head in and wave a paw at Twilight – she slammed the door and bashed her head against it.

“Useless, useless, useless!” she yelled with each hit.

“It’s OK, Rarity.” Fluttershy reached across and tipped the hot cocoa down her throat. “I know you tried your best. It was good that we checked with the florists at all. That way, we at least know that they don’t know either.”

“Whoop, whoop, whoopity doo,” muttered Rarity into the door. Turning around, she wailed, “Fluttershy, I’m at my wit’s end here! I’ve asked farmers, gardeners, the spa ponies, everyone short of the pets! If even those three florists can’t tell what it is, then what’s the point in me being here at all!?”

Her eyeliner began to run. Twilight hid her rolling eyes behind another shot from the upturned mug, but a small part of her wanted to give Rarity a duet. She’s right. We’re not getting anywhere. How can we even think of pulling it out or chopping its heads off if no one knows what’ll happen when we try? That could make it worse. We’re working blind!

“There there, Rarity,” she heard Fluttershy say. A chink of mugs met her ears while she scanned the notes. “Why don’t you get a nice hot cocoa inside you? Maybe when Spike finishes with the lab stuff, we’ll finally get the answers we’re looking for.”

Rarity gulped, gulped, gulped. Good grief, Twilight thought. That must be scolding.

Eventually, Rarity came up for breath and slammed the mug down. “I just know those markings are crucial. I could’ve sworn I’ve seen markings just like them once upon a time. Oh, if only I could remember! I’d beat my memory out if I had to.”

“Careful you don’t beat it too hard,” said Fluttershy. “I heard if you hit your head hard enough, it scrambles your mind and you could turn into another personality.”

Twilight lowered the papers; she wasn’t going to let that one slide. “Really, Fluttershy? Really? Where do you get these sorts of ideas from?”

“I pick them up here and there. Besides, everyone knows this stuff. Uh.” She blushed under Twilight’s stare. “Don’t they?”

“I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but in my experience ponies who hit their heads hard enough get nothing but concussion. I should know. I keep a tally.” It’s just as well unicorns heal fast, she thought grimly.

Outside, the clanking and the clattering ceased. All three of them checked the lighting at the window. Twilight drew the blinds back for a moment, and as they watched, stars emerged from the midnight blue and twinkled into place.

Spike pushed the lower Dutch door open and strode in, wiping his hands together. “All done! I’ll wheel the lot through the back door, if you think it’ll fit through. So we gonna make a start tonight? I can stay awake, I promise.”

“Well done, Spike.” Twilight concentrated, making the papers vanish, and stood up. “No time like the present, as Star Swirl the Bearded once said.”

“Wow, free cocoa!”

No one stopped him as he emptied one mug, then the second, and then the third down his gullet. There were bags under his eyes, and scales across his forehead and arms were scuffed.

“Dear Spikey-Wikey,” cooed Rarity, patting his head and avoiding the green spikes. “You have worked so hard, haven’t you? Isn’t he a gem?”

Yes he is, thought Twilight proudly. “Well, everyone’s checked in today. Applejack’s sending letters to her relatives, and Fluttershy’s critters are…?”

“Asking around the forest,” said Fluttershy, nodding.

“Yes. That.” Twilight hummed to herself. She could feel a lock of her own mane poking into her mouth where she must’ve caught it, and she found herself chewing absent-mindedly.

“Where is Rainbow Dash, by the way?” said Rarity coldly. “I can’t imagine she’s all that busy when it’s clearly supposed to be clear summer skies this week.”

Let’s not go there yet. Twilight didn’t need to see Fluttershy’s sidelong gaze, but she could feel it cutting into her forehead.

“Let’s worry about her tomorrow, shall we?” she said, hoping she sounded calm and reasonable rather than curt and needling. “Wheel in the lab, Spike. Hopefully, we’ll have this thing solved in time for breakfast.”

“Aye aye, Twilight!” He scurried out of the cottage.

“Very well. Let us hope for better tidings tomorrow,” said Rarity, striding out after him. “But I will get to the bottom of this, you mark my words!”

Give Rainbow some time, she says, Twilight thought once she’d closed the front door. We don’t even know how long the plant lasts. I don’t care what Fluttershy says; sooner or later, I’m going to have to drag that pegasus in.

“We’re going to have that thing off tonight,” she said.

“But you might not.” Fluttershy sat down, and the stems bobbed, a mockery of sunflowers in the wind. Behind them, Spike pushed the back door open with one hand while the other clung on to the handle of a large, groaning trolley. Things clanked on top of it.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “We will, Fluttershy. We will. Because we’ve got science on our side now.”

Spike slipped out, eased the door shut, took a deep breath, and pinched his nose. It wasn’t just the sneezing this time, though the bubbling mucus made his claws slip a bit.

Both of his hands ached with cramp. He could still feel the metal touch as though he’d been clamping iron and steel all night, which he ruefully noted was more or less what he’d been doing. Within his skull, thoughts and memories throbbed with the pain of being called up for the hundredth time.

Beyond the timber door, muffled groans and fizzing spells came and went. Murmuring softly, Fluttershy soon eased Twilight’s complaints down to silence.

He stuffed the slice of red velvet cake into his mouth. It did nothing for the pit inside his stomach, and clumps of icing-topped mix tumbled onto the path, but the ache in his head died down a bit. At least he knew where he was with cake.

Maybe I shouldn’t have just stepped out like that, he thought. Hastily, he swallowed the slice and opened the door a crack.

“I’m getting some fresh air for a bit, OK?” he said to the warming glow. “I’m totally not bailing! I’ll be back in a minute or two!”

To his surprise, Twilight’s voice was not shaking with barely suppressed frustration, but was, if anything, soft and calm when she next spoke: “That’s perfectly fine, Spike. I know this must be exhausting for you. Go ahead and take a break. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“You’re the best, Twilight!” Yet when he closed the door, he could hear her muttering again. Suspicion raised its claws over his brow.

Is she talking about me? He pressed his scaly ear flap against the door, but couldn’t make out many words besides “plant” and “must be something” and “try this experiment”. Only after a while did he realize he was wringing his hands again, and he forced himself to stop.

What are we doing wrong? I know we should’ve found out something by now.

The moon shone down upon him, casting an opal patina on the rounded treetops. Stars twinkled in the stream. Everything beyond that was purely a black, empty nothingness. Quickly, he avoided looking at it, yet the yawn forced itself on his jaw, and he found his eyelids struggling.

Don’t be such a baby, he thought grimly. Be like… uh… Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious! Yeah, that’s it. Be a hero! A hero doesn’t get a stupid nap when his friends are in trouble. He helps them out, come rain or shine.

Guilt flared up in his chest. He checked the door again, but the crash of metal told him Twilight was unfolding yet another machine from her collection.

Nevertheless, Spike picked up scroll and quill. Despite the growing ache inside him, he shushed himself and wrote: “Dear Princess Celestia. I know it’s late and everything, but we’ve got a big problem down here. Fluttershy’s got an Everfree plant growing on her back! We’re trying to get rid of it, but we can’t find out much about what it is or what it wants or how to stop it. Can you help us out? I’m putting in all the clues and things we’ve gotten so far. Here’s number one…”

While he scribbled and scrawled and dotted the page, he sighed as the ache flowed out of his chest and along his arm to the paper. Occasionally, he tilted the note to better catch the moonlight.

Now this is more like Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious! He giggled to himself. Questing for to save the damsel in distress, the brave dragon knight seeks counsel from the wisest of all wise mares herself! Hey, I should write a story about that someday.

Once he’d finished scribbling, he reached under the doorway and added a stash of photos and zigzagging readings and copies of notes. One deep breath later, and the lot disappeared under the twinkling green of his enchanted flame, rising up as steam and across the treetops and out of sight.

“It is done,” he said in his best noble knight voice.

A deeper, darker part of him opened its eyes. Behind the shield of Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious, a shadow snorted.

No, he thought quickly. Don’t you start that! I’m not like that anymore.

Yet another part of him thought, Then how come you haven’t cured Fluttershy already? You must be holding back.

Spike folded his arms and scowled. I’m not listening to you. Why should I listen to you? You got me into trouble all those years ago. I don’t forget. Besides, Twilight’s giving it her all. It’s not her fault. I’ll bet only Celestia could figure this one out.

“Maybe I should go back in and help,” he whispered to the distant trickle of the stream. Another yawn forced its way onto his face. “Maybe I do need to try a bit harder. I could’ve missed something, or I could’ve found one of those thaumo-thingies. I knew ours was too old! What if it’s broken?”

At once, the familiar seizure hit his mouth, and he belched green flames. That was fast, he thought, heart leaping up at the sight of the sparkling ribbon and the sun symbol on it. Then the scroll thumped onto the ground.

“You OK out there?” said Twilight from inside.

“Just another sneeze! Nothing new here!”

Hastily, he plucked the reply from the grass. Spike took a deep breath before unfurling the scroll.

“Dear Spike,” he read. “I am sorry to hear about this terrible turn of events. It was quite right for you to consult anyone and everyone who could be of service, given the seriousness of this situation. However, I am afraid I cannot be of much immediate help to you. While I suspect I will be able to identify this plant species if given enough time – it does seem vaguely familiar – I regret to inform you that I will need to locate the academic source. Forthwith, I shall instruct my archivists to analyze the information you have provided.”

Spike ummed and ahhed under his breath. Of course, he had to admit it was always a slim chance, and the chance was still there after all. At least it wasn’t a straight “no”. He continued reading.

“Incidentally, I am curious as to why Twilight did not send the request herself. I note that you are the only signatory of the letter. While I would not dream of impugning her judgement, I admit I am concerned, and I hope there are no unfortunate complications.”

Complications, he thought, his heart sinking back into his ribcage. Right.

Well, she probably would ask eventually. But you know how she gets. It’s like the plant’s making fun of her every time she can’t tell what it is or how much magic’s in its leaves. I reckon she knows she can do it. She just has to.

So why did I send this letter? Did I doubt her too much? What if she solves it in a couple of minutes? What if it’s nothing? I mean, that doesn’t make what I did, well, bad. Better safe than sorry, right?

Behind him, a crash cut off Twilight’s groan of frustration.

And she is in a funny mood. She doesn’t like failing. Fair enough. Neither do I. But I just pick myself up and dust myself down. She leaps up and starts magicking up the place.

Another crash followed. Spike turned the letter over and picked up the quill. Since Celestia had been quick with her reply, he felt the urge to match her time. It was the least he could do.

Inside his head, Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious raised sword and shield. The shadows stirred.

No, he thought angrily. I do care. I’m doing this for Twilight, and for Fluttershy. I’m not doing this for you. I don’t need you. I don’t want you around.

Nonetheless, the shadow bared its teeth and unfolded its wings, casting a memory over him like a gale. Sleep tried to ease him forwards. The sun beat down on his back for a moment. He had to fight to stop his limbs curling up.

And there it was. A flash of insight, like a shooting star briefly shining across the still space between the twinkling lights. Frowning, Spike put quill to paper.

“Dear Celestia,” he wrote. “I don’t think there are any complications. Princess Twilight” – he allowed himself a grin – “can figure this out. It’s only a plant, after all. With all our friends by her side, she’ll have it off soon. She’s smart and she doesn’t give up.”

He raised the quill and reread the words. Out in the open, they seemed stupid, almost childish.

I shouldn’t have doubted her, he thought while the shadow growled deep inside him. She can’t find out about this letter. She’ll think I don’t trust her, or worse: she’ll think I don’t really care about her, just about getting the glory! But I do care! I know I do! I’m as much a pony as I am a dragon, and ponies don’t leave their friends for selfish reasons. So neither will I. I'm a better dragon now. Uh, a better pony. Oh, dang it.

Sweat tinged his brow. He felt it against the cool stillness of the night.

He could hear her filly voice, echoing across the years, yelling his name. Here and now, his toes curled with embarrassment, and he almost opened his mouth to yell back, to reassure her. There and then, the sun beat down, and he clamped his eyes shut and growled and wished the stupid foal would shut up and let him sleep already. In his head, the shadow of the dragon murmured in agreement.

Spike continued writing.

“But I’m a bit scared, to be honest. I think she’s scared too, and she doesn’t want to admit it. It’s not like asking the other ponies because she got a fresh start with them when she moved in to Ponyville, but she remembers you way back when she was very little. I think she still remembers what I did, and that she thinks you remember when she –”

Hastily, he crossed out that last sentence, and then scribbled over it for good measure.

“I think she’s getting a bit worked up about it, and in case she goes too far –”

Again, he reduced that part of the letter to a black shine. Already, his mind was weighing him down with the pressure of mounting sleep. Not a thought came in that wasn’t squeezed and crushed by it. Wincing with the effort, he shrugged and added a few final words instead.

“I wanted to ask just in case.”

Spike signed it and rolled it up. Another burst of flame, and the steam vanished into the darkness. Watching it go, he hummed doubtfully. Even his brave attempt at a grin twisted around the lips as the worry clenched his head.

I had to do it, he thought. I had to help. Twilight needs me, even if she won’t say so. I’m not some stupid dragon who only looks after Number One. I’m Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious! I’ll never let Twilight down ever again. A true hero takes a burden away; he doesn’t add new ones to the list.

Within his mind, the shadow dragon drew back and faded into the darkness. He knew it was still there, though. It was always watching, sometimes curiously, sometimes hungrily.

Besides, I owe her big time. I’m not there yet. Maybe I’ll never be, but it doesn’t matter because I’m doing it anyway. And I’m not letting anything happen to Fluttershy. Not after we first met. Not after I told her my whole life story. And definitely not after she saw me as Spike, not as some annoying pest or frightening little monster. I owe her big time too.

“Spike?” called Twilight from inside the cottage.

Rising up with shield braced, sword gleaming, and draconic armour pressing against his imaginary muscles, the imago of Sir Spike the Brave and Glorious swelled his chest. Spike wiped the last of the encrusted mucus off his face.

“You called?” he said.

“Can you come give me a hand with this thaumospectrometer, please?”

As he approached the door, Spike flexed his biceps and raised his fists. “You got it! Spike the Dragon, ready to kick some plant-y butt!”

Spike swung the door aside. Two silhouettes turned their heads to him. Warmth and light embraced him like a crowd of admirers, and for a moment he was insanely glad he’d sent the letters.

Perhaps, he thought, that was really the whole point all along, huh?

Twilight stood there, eyes veined and jaundiced, mane tearing itself apart through sheer stress, back slightly slouched. Even as he watched, however, her eyelids widened with new life, she forced a smile on her face, and her spine stiffened.

She chuckled. “Good break, was it?”

“The best! No two-bit geranium’s gonna get the drop on us, right guys?”

“Right.” Fluttershy sat down and nodded.

Beyond her, the table creaked with pipes and valves and gears and blank screens. Under their shade was the plate with the leftover red velvet cake. This time, he barely gave it a glance.

The Everfront

The sun rose over the hills, scorching the clouds white and then flooding the fields and forests with green. Cutting cleanly across the open country, the gravel path stretched from the outskirts of Ponyville behind to the distant white spires of the cloud city ahead. On another day, Twilight might have stopped to marvel at the inspiration of pastoral poets across the ages.

Instead, she groaned. Her eyes were too puffy and burned, her ears rang with the words read from tens of thousands of pages, and her mouth was sticky with too much cake. Ambling along the path, she struggled to keep her neck from sinking. Occasionally, she felt a kick in her haunches and briefly jolted awake.

What have I missed? she thought miserably. More ponies had brought tomes and talked to her, but the closest match she’d managed to find so far was a kind of clingy mandrake, and that had as much in common with the plant as a potato had with an orchid. Spike and she had taken cuttings from the leaves and the stems and even the petals, which had required magical laser tools because the things were as metallic as they looked. They’d magnified them, dripped acid on them, placed them in mangled-looking devices with knobs and oscilloscopes, and cast spells over them. She might as well have asked them politely, and at one particularly tired and desperate point had actually done so.

On her back, Spike kicked her haunches again. “Don’t go to sleep now, Twilight! Inspiration hit, yet?”

“No,” she grumbled to the path. “I don’t know why I took this stupid 'head-clearing' walk in the first place. All I’ve learned is useless trivia that doesn’t match anything reliably enough. The magical readings match those of the Vlyshrap Trap, but the cellular chemistry is closer to mistletoe, it has traces of alum scent, and the alloy in the flower doesn’t have an equivalent outside of the Ferranthidae family, which are all tropical anyway. This doesn’t make a lick of sense, walk or no walk!”

She was starting to feel an old panic peeking through the intellectual knots. Hastily, she pushed it back down. It’s not like that. I know what I’m doing. Only it’s not paying off yet. Patience, I need patience. A good walk keeps the blood flowing easily, just like Professor Top Trough used to say.

I only have to find a cure this time. I don’t have to figure out what I did first. And at least she’s not lying on her side, groaning… or turning stiff…

“Well,” said Spike, filling his voice with too much casualness, “I guess we’ve walked long enough. Time to head back, you think?”

No! Time to come up with answers! I’m smarter than this. I know it. “Not yet. Do you hear something?”

Even as she spoke, however, she caught the movement and looked up. She didn’t even need Spike’s slight bouncing to let her know.

Up among the clouds, where the pegasi pushed weather back and forth or – during lazy days – slept on it, a few figures had clustered together. One of the cumulus platforms floated a few hundred yards above the distant hedgerow, close enough for Twilight to catch coat colours and distinguish wings from bodies.

“What’re they doing?” Spike said. He raised a clawed hand and squinted.

“Looks like some kind of weather-making practice.”

Whistling noises drifted through the still morning air. On the cloud, she could discern a pink barrel with a trumpet poking out of it, and recognized the design. Cloud-blaster generators had been all over the place when she’d visited Cloudsdale. It was like a bubble-blowing device, except you poured buckets of solution into the top, and the resulting blast could shoot a pony like a cannonball.

Another whistle echoed across the way. A column of pink and white splodges projected from the trumpet in a steady stream. Barely visible as an outline within, the shadow of a pegasus stretched and her wings were a blur, yet she made no headway against the wind.

“Looks like she’s in trouble,” said Spike. “But why aren’t those other pegasi helping her? They’re just huddling around the machine.”

“Maybe they’re trying to get something inside it. Hold on. I’ll see what I can do.”

Beating her own wings, Princess Twilight shot into the air – gagging slightly when Spike squeezed her neck – and closed in on the cloud-blaster, which swelled until she could distinguish decorative swirls and pastel splodges on the design. The other pegasi turned their heads, all except the one fighting the blast, who didn’t turn around until Twilight could see the rainbow mane peeking out of the pink and white.

Gusts caught on Twilight’s wings. Instantly, they punched her backwards.

Green and blue whirled around and over her. Spike’s legs wrenched themselves off her, and suddenly he was screaming into her ears. In desperation, Twilight flapped harder, but such was the turbulence that a few joints cracked and she winced at the pressure of incoming sprains and fractures. She closed her eyes, trying to summon some kind of teleportation spell…

“Whoa, whoa!” cried another voice.

She hit a body, and the punching became a ruffling of her mane and a rubbing along her chin and belly. Spike’s legs kicked her sides until he was mounted on her back once more. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you crazy!?” roared Rainbow Dash, and even though she was immediately behind Twilight, she had to shout over the whistling din. “You’re nowhere near good enough to be going up against one of these!”

Someone found the off switch. The ruffling and the rubbing vanished, and the whistling chugged down to silence. When Twilight opened her eyes again, Rainbow’s raised eyebrow hovered a foot away from her. Beyond the cloud-blaster, the flock of pegasi clapped and cheered.

“Way to go, Rainbow Dash!” shouted Spike, and Twilight could see his head poking over her right shoulder. “That was one cool save!”

“I know,” said Rainbow Dash matter-of-factly, struggling to hide the grin. Behind her, the pegasi settled down.

“I mean, I thought you might be in trouble or something, but then you snapped to it so fast, it was like you went from nothing to action all at once.” He added in a carrying whisper, “Reckon you could teach me that?”

Rainbow glanced at the scaly, short, and noticeably wing-free spinal region of the young dragon. “Uh… sure, I guess? I might have to change it around a bit? Maybe?”

Both ponies flinched when he snorted, but then he simply continued, “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a slowpoke, but us dragons don’t always need quick reflexes. I could learn, though. It’d be like the time you taught me how to do a full morning workout to get me psyched up for the rest of the day. Boy, was that an education!”

“What are you two doing here?” cut in Rainbow, eyeing them up suspiciously.

She’s still thinking about yesterday, isn’t she? Twilight hung her head.

“I thought you might be… in trouble,” she said, trying to smile and overshooting by several molars and two stretched lips. “And anyway, Spike and I were taking a morning stroll to clear our heads when we happened to stumble upon your… whatever you were doing…”

She watched the words die almost immediately under Rainbow's narrowed eyes, Rainbow opened her mouth, but nothing came out for several seconds.

“Is that so?” she said at last. “You know you’re not supposed to interfere with this kind of stuff, right?”

“Look, I didn’t want to pester you, or anything like that. I was wondering… I thought you needed help…”

A bark of a laugh knocked those words out of the air. “Help? Me? What makes you think that?”

“Sorry,” said Twilight.

“Look, you don’t just jump in like that!” Rainbow pointed at the machine. “Every pegasus knows you don’t try and mess with a flyer when she’s taking an exercise of that skill level. You could’ve hurt yourself against that blaster!”

Twilight’s brain hit a brick wall. Wait, so she’s not still thinking about yesterday?

“But –” she began.

“But what were you doing with the cloud-blaster anyway?” said Spike, who in some respects could be quick off the mark. “I thought those things stayed in the weather factory.”

Finally, Rainbow’s face brightened up; light gleamed in her relaxed eyes, and a glint caught her teeth when she next spoke. “What, Old Baron here? She’s been retired for years. They threw her out because the clouds weren’t forming properly anymore. But she still has enough juice to give a good push, so we use her for a Take-Aback.” Smirking, she added, “Full speed matches a low hurricane cycle, and ha! I wasn’t even trying!”

Twilight tried the sentence again in her head, but could only vaguely guess at the meaning. Too often, Rainbow assumed that a pair of wings meant a pony was an expert on the finer points of pegasus living, which to Twilight’s mind was about as fair as assuming a chicken knew the aeronautical powers of a swallow, albatross, and peregrine falcon combined.

“You mean you were deliberately flying against it?” said Spike.

“Duh. How else do you build up the needed wing muscle and eddy sense? The counter-current drags against your pinions, catches the surface area, and pushes you exactly where you don’t want to go. That’s why it’s called ‘taken aback’.”

“Eddy sense?” said Spike.

“Super important sense, that. Only thing worse than a straight gust is a gust that curls back on itself. That’s the eddy. If you don’t notice the eddy before it hits, you can get sucked in and you’re wiped out like that.” Cracking her tail like a whip, she continued cheerfully, “Of course, when you’re as good as me, you can roll with the eddies for a quick recovery, but it’s a lot better to learn to see one coming and try to flatten out if you can beat it to the punch, or dodge it if you can’t.”

Twilight decided not to chip in with her own theories of aerodynamics. Her professors at the magic academy had always stressed experience over armchair reasoning, and she was clearly dealing with a champion on that front. Besides, she had the gnawing sensation that Rainbow was talking to her more than to Spike. Subtle teasing, perhaps?

“That’s why ol’ Twilight here wiped out,” said Rainbow. “Soon as she got into range, her own wings curved the blast back in on itself, and the eddies threw her around like a rag doll.”

Oh. Not so subtle, then. “Be fair, Rainbow,” she said, fighting against the indignant leap of her voice’s pitch. “I… haven’t mastered the advanced techniques yet.”

Rainbow grinned at her. “Don’t feel bad, Twilight. Not every flyer can reach the peak of Mount Dash, after all. Of course, in your case, Foothill Fluttershy’s enough of a challenge.”

Determined to look at something other than Rainbow’s infuriating grin, Twilight instead watched the pegasi fuss about the machine. Some kicked various parts until they chugged, others wiped gobs of pink from inside, and one poured more solution from bucket to opening at the top.

Spike sniggered, and then cut himself off and sniffed something sticky back up his nose. A pang of worry dripped through her consciousness. Whatever’s gotten into him, it isn’t going down anytime soon…

“Ow.” Rainbow grunted and rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. “Excuse me… Darn rash… Ah! Just after I got over all those bruises from training too.”

“So why bother with something like that?” Spike said, pointing to the machine. “Don’t pegasi control the wind anyway?”

Lowering her hooves again, Rainbow shrugged. “Mostly. But I’m not talking about the tame stuff we whip up to get the clouds packing.”

“What else is there?” Twilight asked, and noticed her friend was gazing beyond her to something on the eastern horizon.

“Wild wind,” said Rainbow.

Twilight swivelled slowly on the spot, following the thin thread of hatred from Rainbow’s sudden glare to the darkening horizon.

Beyond the shiny meadows and blotches of trees like squidgy broccoli, the spiny outlines of Everfree canopy loomed. Where the sunlight stopped and the gangrenous spikes began, Everfree Forest had infested the landscape. During a calm summer’s day, the occasional shriek of a primordial swamp beast carried cleanly over the silence. Foul decaying scents wafted so thickly from its treetops that the sizzling haze and sickly green smoke were almost visible. Spasms ran down their bodies just looking at it.

“That’s why we watch the Everfront,” Rainbow murmured.

The voice was so close to her that Twilight almost threw Spike over out of sheer shock. “Rainbow, don’t do that!”

“What? Can’t handle a little spookiness? I wanna make it clear that you do not mess with the Everfront. Ever.”

“What's this Everfront you keep talking about?” said Spike.

“The Everfree Front. That's what we call it when it gets like this.”

Thunder rumbled over the lands. The fields should have shimmered with the waves; Twilight felt her own bones and teeth twanging as the noise rolled over them.

Behind the pair, pegasi raised their voices in a spirited attempt to talk over each other. Spike nudged Twilight in the back of the head, and when she looked round, she found the flock of the winged ponies almost face-to-face with each other.

“What’s up with them?” she said.

Rainbow Dash sighed and wiped her face with a hoof. “It’s the whole Everfront thing. They’re arguing over it.” She flapped back and added bitterly, “That’s all they ever do.”

Needing no excuse to edge away from the forest and its darkening clouds, Twilight followed her towards the cloud-blaster. As they approached, words drifted over the distance.

“Look, it’s clearly your shift in a few hours –”

“I checked the schedule three times. My name was nowhere –”

“I’m not going out when it’s like that. Supposing I got struck by lighting –”

“DON’T WANNA GO! WON’T GO!”

“Guys, guys!” Rainbow hovered before them, spreading silence among the ranks. “Quit it! Sooner or later, you’re going on that front. Everyone who can fly is going on that front, because if they didn’t then no one would. I did my share, you'll do yours. It’s fair. Deal with it.”

Twilight felt her eyebrows jump to her fringe. They can’t be that scared, can they? They have mastery over weather. Half of them auditioned for the Wonderbolts! Rainbow had introduced her to most of them at various times, and surprisingly for the pegasus she’d thrown in a few words of praise, though unsurprisingly she followed them up with something like “but obviously, only one of us has done a Sonic Rainboom”.

There was Thunderlane, who would’ve been the greatest Cloudsdale flyer of his generation if Rainbow hadn’t beaten him to it. There was Cloudchaser, a stamina fiend and the only pegasus known to keep flying even in her sleep. She recognized White Lightning, who treated thunder and lightning as though they were squeaks and sparks. And no one could miss Bulk Biceps; he could only be described as a tank with wings.

Flying in formation, they could’ve wiped out a cumulonimbus the size of a county. All of them, however, were eyeing up the forest’s booming clouds. They shuddered at the thunder, blinking at the lightning.

“What if –” began Derpy.

“No ifs!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

“But –” began Flitter.

“No buts! Look guys, we’ve got a serious job to do, and we’re the only ones who can do it. Everyone does their share. And everyone in Ponyville is counting on us. Don’t let ‘em down now, OK?”

None of the faces were smiling, but even the tightest grimaces softened, especially among the – Twilight didn’t want to use the description, but nothing else came to her – more competent weather ponies.

Such was Rainbow’s stiff-backed, half-braced manner that Twilight raised a hoof before she realized who she was supposed to be. To her surprise, several of the less competent weather ponies stiffened and braced themselves. No matter how often she explained that she was still the same pony, or that she didn’t want ponies bowing or kowtowing to her, a few seemed incapable of seeing anything but Princess.

“You watch the Everfree for stray weather?” she said, trying not to sound imperious.

Rainbow swung round as though she’d been ambushed. “What!? You seriously don’t know?”

On the other hoof, there is such a thing as getting too little respect. “No, Rainbow Dash,” she found herself saying hotly, “because as I’ve pointed out before, I’m not a pegasus!”

“All right, all right, I was only saying.” She ignored a couple of giggles from behind. “Yeah. Our weather only goes where we want it to. But the Everfree weather? Now that goes where it wants to.”

Another rumble ripped through the sky, making them all look across to the black stain spreading across the eastern skies. Spike clutched Twilight so tightly, pushing his feet and hands so deeply into her, that she felt his claws digging into her neck and haunches, ready to puncture the skin.

“Can’t you stop it now?” he said, his voice slightly higher than usual.

“Believe me, we’ve tried it before it forms loads of times,” said Thunderlane behind the three of them. “You just get wiped out. That’s if you’re lucky and don’t get sucked into the Everfree Forest forever.”

Twilight shivered at the thought. Old stories flitted through her mind: of ponies wandering through the Everfree but never coming out. Stray off the beaten path or get thrown into the depths, they said, and the forest did things to you. First, you’d see the mist come creeping in to surround you. Then there’d be the howls of the hidden creatures. Soon, it’d start sneaking in through the twitchy ears and the straining irises. Your mind was the last thing you’d lose.

Not for the first time, she really, really wished Rainbow Dash didn’t enjoy ghost stories so much. Even now, Rainbow was giving her a sidelong smirk.

“No pony goes in,” she murmured, “and ever, ever comes back out.”

“Quit it, Rainbow. You’re scaring Spike.”

“I know. I can see how much you’re trembling.”

“No, she’s not,” said Spike in an uncharacteristic warble. That cut off Twilight’s curt reply. Then, his grip relaxed, and he continued, “Wait a minute. If this is such a big deal, how come we’ve never seen any weather come over that way? You’re just trying to scare us, aren’t you?”

Rainbow’s smirk became a frown. “I’m not kidding around. It really is that dangerous.”

“Tell her about the last time!” piped up Cloudchaser from behind.

The other pegasi joined in the chorus, and when Twilight checked them for any sign of smirks or winks, she saw nothing but steady gazes and the occasional bout of hoof-biting.

On her back, Spike sniffed loud enough to prick her eardrums, making her wince. “Still holding up OK, Spike?” she whispered.

He quickly stopped sniffing. “I’m fine, Twilight. I’m not a baby. Well, yeah I am, but I can take care of myself. This is just… er… a part of the allergic reaction, that’s all. I must have allergies to that plant thing. Or it could be hay fever.”

“Very funny.” She rolled her eyes.

“Funny? I was laughing?”

“Ow! Gosh darn it!” Rainbow grunted and rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. “Stupid rash…”

“What’s wrong?” said Spike.

“I got a rash from tackling F – nothing,” she snapped. “Cuts and bruises, that’s all. That’s what happens when you’re a pegasus on the job. It’s nothing.”

Angered at being ignored, the thunder roared across their faces, scattering stray locks and forcing eyelids to brace themselves against it. All talk vanished under the tidal wave of clamour. Satisfied, the rumble eased back down to a sinister hum that echoed in their ears while they relaxed limbs and opened eyes.

“So…” said Twilight in the silence, “what… exactly… did happen last time?”

The pegasi exchanged glances amongst themselves, but a few seconds later all heads turned to Rainbow Dash.

“It was years ago,” she said, glaring at the flock before continuing, “like way, way back. You’d have been just a filly at the time, I guess. That’s how far back it was.”

A filly. Twilight winced while Spike adjusted his seat and propped his elbows on her scalp. I think I remember. There was thunder coming all the way north to Canterlot. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Mom said it was just a really big storm. I don't remember much of anything else.

“Wait a second,” murmured Spike over her. “I think I remember that. Wasn’t there some kind of whirlwind? Everyone at the magic school kept talking about it, you said, because you didn’t like how they kept talking in class when the Professor guy was teaching about… er, something to do with moons, I think.”

Twilight gasped. Sure, he’s got a good memory, but… “You remember that much detail?”

“Duh. I can remember what colour my egg was.” She could hear the smirk in his voice when he added, “And how do you think I’ve been keeping up with you all these years?”

“I know, but to this level of detail? You have an eidetic memory?” After a pause, she added, “That’s a photographic memory. Some ponies don’t even believe it exists. Or maybe it’s hyperthymesia? Er, I mean, really good autobiographical memory, obviously –”

“I dunno. Look, I just remember stuff really well. I don’t know how it works. Maybe it’s because I’m a dragon, or I picked it up from you somehow. You’ve got a good memory too.”

“Anyway,” cut in Rainbow Dash, and the two of them grinned apologetically at her. “I was just a filly at the time. It was after Fluttershy moved out of Cloudsdale and went to Ponyville. Of course, Ponyville was a bit different back then.”

“Different?” said Twilight.

“As in boring.”

“Oh.” Twilight barely listened. How is this helping? Sure, I can guess now what Rainbow Dash must have been doing when Zecora and Fluttershy met the plant, but is the weather connected somehow? Were those clouds there yesterday? For once, she cursed her lack of attention, but a lot had been going on.

Spike could remember so much. It wasn’t the surprise squeezing inside her chest. He must have remembered everything she did…

So much cloud had compacted and compressed itself on the horizon that the whole began to resemble a gigantic grey cliff, waiting to crash down onto the shadowed trees. She shuddered to think of the shockwave, ripping up branches and boulders as it went, ploughing across the fields and turning their world dark –

“I don’t know much about it myself,” said Rainbow Dash. “It doesn’t happen very often. But that year, it was turning all thundery like this. Some of the older ponies kept going on about storms, but we just thought it was like some dumping ground for waste weather. And then, it went all dark. Just like this. It was cold and rumbling. Just like this.”

“Rainbow…” said Twilight warningly.

“That was when… pause for suspense… the Desolation struck!”

Twilight could hear the capital letter before Rainbow tensed, wings splayed, limbs wide as though exploding. As if on cue, low rumbles ran over them. The sky was guffawing at the flock, most of whom were huddling closer together until one multi-winged, multi-headed creature was the result. Rainbow ignored them, but a slight smirk flickered across her lips.

“D-D-D-Desolation?” said Spike.

“Yup.” Rainbow relaxed into a steady hovering flap again. “The storm of the Everfree. Only the best pegasi can even hope to control it, and it’s never been tamed by less than a whole squadron. This one was a whopper. Wide as a country and vicious as a battlefield. Everyone in Cloudsdale went crazy over it.”

Despite herself, Twilight asked, “What did they do?”

She regretted it at once when Rainbow rubbed her hooves with glee. “Whatever they could. Try to blow it out, flap it out, trap it with a line of storm clouds of their own. But it was a close one. The town used to stretch much further that way…”

Twilight and Spike followed her sweeping gesture. From the edge of Ponyville and past the Everfree frontier to a jagged ridge, there was little but forest and fields. Squinting, they could make out the thatched hump of Fluttershy’s cottage, tucked next to a redwood and surrounded by rounded foliage like green safety buffers.

“…until Desolation came.” Rainbow sighed, ever the showmare. “Oh, the horror! By the time the weather ponies had worn it down to nothing, Desolation had already smashed a load of streets. Oh, the ponies got out OK. We warned ‘em ahead of time. But nothing was left except one or two of the cottages.”

Twilight could now make out the stream running through Fluttershy’s gardens and under her bridge. “Lucky,” she murmured.

“Yeah, weather can be weird like that.” Rainbow shrugged. “And that’s pretty much it. That’s why Cloudsdale always makes sure there’s at least one pegasus who –”

“Tell ‘em what you did, Rainbow Dash!” cried out Derpy.

A dam had burst; one by one, the pegasi joined in the mumbling and nodding and crying out for more of the story. To Twilight’s surprise, Rainbow’s gaze suddenly darkened, and a pegasus who elsewhere would’ve been champing at the bit now gritted her teeth and growled.

“Not this again,” she groaned.

“I was there!” Thunderlane said to the nodding heads. “As soon as the storm hit, Rainbow Dash jumped right in. She tried to make a Rainboom. Didn’t work, of course, but you should’ve seen her! Going back and forth, driving the cloud into the Everfree forest! She was amazing!”

“YEAH!” cheered Bulk Biceps.

Rainbow rounded on them, and the squad fell silent faster than kids after the teacher’s slammed the door. Thunderlane drew back, suddenly realizing he was the centre of the wrong kind of attention.

“No!” she snapped. “It wasn’t amazing. It was dumb and it was stupid! I could’ve wiped out, or knocked one of the others out of the sky. Then the storm would’ve –”

“But you didn’t, did you?” Thunderlane folded his forelimbs smugly. Nods met his words.

Rainbow groaned in the face of all the admiring smiles. A suspicion crept into Twilight’s head. Watching the pegasi chatter amongst themselves, she drifted over to Rainbow and leaned in closer.

“Was Fluttershy living around there at the time?” she said softly.

“Uh… yeah, but so what? Lots of ponies lived there. It was still stupid.”

“Ha. That’s funny. I’d have thought you’d have boasted about something like that. You must have been quite brave when you were a filly…”

And at least you tried to help Fluttershy. At least you had your heart in the right place. What was I doing back then? I didn’t even take care of Spike properly. He was crying all the time at that age.

Rainbow’s glare put even the next round of thunder to shame. “That was then. This is now. Look, is this important? You’re supposed to be curing Fluttershy, aren’t you? And I need to be ready in case that storm comes over. If we’re lucky, it’ll swing round and miss us, but I’m not relying on luck today.”

“All right, all right!” Twilight said, raising her forelimbs protectively. “I’m on my way now! Leaving you to be ready in case that storm comes over!”

Yet as she went, she was slightly ashamed of herself when she threw a sneaky peek back. She saw Rainbow Dash, with her back turned to them, lower her head, though whether through shame or sadness she couldn’t tell.

“Wow,” said Spike. He sniffed and wiped his nose against the back of a clawed hand. “That was rude. What’s her deal?”

“She’s just taking this thing seriously,” said Twilight. “Did you bring any quills or paper, Spike? No? Could you remember all that detail we’ve just talked about?”

Spike tapped his skull. “You bet. And you know what I think?”

Finally, he hopped off her back and she landed all four hooves onto the cool, green grass. It didn’t matter that she was a Princess for pegasi and earth ponies and unicorns all together in harmony; nothing felt better than the weight of firm, safe ground underneath her.

“I think,” Spike continued, “Fluttershy and Zecora got caught up in something weather-y. I know it was stormy when we got into the forest.”

“Oh Spike, that’s not even a strong correlation. We can’t make too much of it when it could just be a simple coincidence. Besides, Rainbow never mentioned anything about the plant.”

Spike shook his head fervently. “Maybe, but maybe not! You gotta admit it’s a bit, you know, spooky.”

They both watched the pegasi clustering around the platform. Pink and white shot out of the machine again. They could discern Rainbow letting one of the others have a turn before they lost her amid the flock.

“Reckon we should get back?” he said.

Twilight nodded. “I shouldn’t have let us get so distracted. Now we’ve wasted so much time! Come on, let’s go to Fluttershy’s again.”

“Aye aye, captain!”

Yet despite her own cautionary words and the stern cane of common sense hovering over her, Twilight couldn’t help thinking of storms, and strange white soil, and plants. She'd left a pile of books – all of which had been skimmed through – lying scattered about Fluttershy’s carpet and table. Then, she thought of hours and hours of testing and measuring with a kit that was becoming increasingly useless.

“I think it might be worth talking to Zecora,” said Spike. “Maybe she’s good with strange plants.”

Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but something rose up and closed it. What else had they got to lose? She could go and see her friend. Maybe Zecora had found out something in the meantime. Besides, she might be able to furnish more clues.

“Maybe, but not yet,” she said. “I'm sure there's a clue in those cinders we got from the scene, and maybe the sharks mean something too. Just let me try a few more things.”

Old memories prodded her in the head. But I owe it to Spike. After all he’s done for me, after all these years, he still does what he can. Have I really changed that much if I’m still talking him down? I thought I was better, but did I ever ask him? I just assumed. How long have I been like this?

“You OK, Twilight?” said Spike. "You know you're chewing your mane, right?”

Immediately, she spat the offending locks out of her mouth. “I'm fine. I'm fine. Just thinking. That's all. Nothing to worry about.”

Before they vanished down the slope of the hill, she turned back to watch the lone pegasus going nowhere against an unstoppable wind.

Stormy Meditations

Through gaps in the canopy, nothing but dark grey could be seen while the Everfree clouds eclipsed the sky, smothering everything from horizon to horizon and sparing only the innocent glow of distant Ponyville. On occasion, a bough or a whole tree flashed by overhead, yet the lowly treetops merely swayed as though drunkenly cheering on the coming monster.

This time, Twilight crept carefully over the fallen twigs and pebbles of the leaf litter, horn pulsing with a starlight dot of magic. She could feel Spike pressing up against her shoulder, but wasn’t sure if the trembling was mostly his or mostly hers. Neither of them stopped glancing at the shadows or at each other. For the Everfree, it was quiet and dead. Given the kind of creatures living within it, neither was much comfort.

“You didn’t have to come,” whispered Twilight to him out of the corner of her mouth. She didn’t want to take her eyes off the walls of thorn and leaf.

“F-Funny,” he managed to say through his chattering teeth. “I-I was going to s-s-say the same thing to y-y-y-you.”

The evidence bags hovered before her. “I’ve got the cuttings she needs. I had to come.”

Spike held up his pen and the scroll, waving them briefly. A distant howling cut through the ever-present screaming winds above them, and he gasped and tried curling up tighter against her.

“I’m not sc-sc-scared,” he said. “It’s… uh… ch-chilly. Th-That’s all. N-Not that it b-b-bothers m-m-me, but you don’t have sc-sc-scales to keep out the c-c-c-cold.”

Twilight opened her mouth to correct him. Something slid through the undergrowth a foot away. She shut her mouth again.

“Very thoughtful,” she squeaked.

It was soon impossible to tell whether it was night time, though she was sure they couldn’t have walked for more than a few minutes. Only when they entered the clearing and saw two glowing yellow eyes like skulking suns did they sigh with relief.

“At least she’s in,” Twilight said. Her glowing horn brightened, revealing the edges of the post-mounted masks scattered about. “Hopefully, we’re about to get some answers.”

As they approached, however, Spike stuck out a warning arm to block her path. Neither of them moved.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Shh!” Spike placed his claws over her muzzle. “I hear something.”

Twilight cocked an ear. Now that she was concentrating, she could detect a muffled sound poking through the air. She narrowed her eyes. They sounded like voices.

“Guests?” She cocked her head quizzically. “But who could that be?”

The muffled voice continued. Spike tugged on Twilight’s elbow.

“There’s someone else in there,” he hissed. “Come on! Let’s get going before they find us!”

“In there?” Shock overtook her ears and kicked her in the head. “Spike! No! We can’t just leave Zecora to… to whatever it is. Anyway, you don’t know who or what it could be.”

The horrible muffled burbling cut through a little more keenly this time. Spike stiffened, and then caught her glare and sucked in a breath.

“OK, OK. But if it’s trouble, we turn tail and run, right?”

Twilight’s horn glowed a little brighter. Both of them approached the doorway, crouched to pounce. From inside the hut, someone swallowed, a full and squelchy sound as though forcing down a small boulder. They could almost hear the slimy straining of the throat when it went down.

Whoever it was chose that moment to groan. Twilight’s magic glowed around the handle. She nodded. Spike grimaced, but waggled his clenched fists in the air, arched his back to pounce, and nodded.

Then Pinkie’s voice groaned, “Oooooooh! This stuff is super baaaaad…”

Both of them slumped and mouthed “phew” to each other. They knocked twice on the door in unison. When Zecora opened it and cast her frown to the outer world, they waggled their items and grinned.

“Sorry to barge in unannooouuunced!” cooed Twilight.

Spike wiped his brow using the back of his hand. “We wanted to talk to you. This isn’t a bad time, is it?”

Zecora’s frown blunted itself to a smile. “No need to fret; I’ve finished now
With Pinkie Pie, the silly clown:
Her tummy’s full, her face a frown,
From all the food she’s gobbled down.”

Behind her, Pinkie sat up to the wooden table and whimpered, clutching a stomach large enough for a sack of toys at Hearth’s Warming Eve. Groaning, it trembled as waves flashed over the surface. She clutched it tightly and head-butted the tabletop.

“Too many cakes,” she murmured. “And cookies… and muffins… and doughnuts… and crumbles… and turnovers… and… ow… piiieees…”

Zecora bustled over to the shelves and bustled back to place a vial on the table, slightly ahead of Pinkie’s slumped locks. “You only have yourself to blame.
Eating banquets – of all the shame!
I have a cure, but better still
For when confronting laden tills
Of sugared foods – unhealthy swill! –
Would be you learning strength of will!”

“Can’t… hear you,” mumbled Pinkie into the wooden surface. “Too rumbly in the tumbly…”

Zecora shook her head, jangling her earrings before noticing the pair hovering by the door. “Come in, come in, you’re welcome here.
Inside this hut, no need to fear:
The caravan of storm and stress
Will never strike a place this blessed.
Those masks outside protect my tree,
Along with any company
Who rest within. Come warm yourselves!
You’d like some treatment from my shelves?”

Closing the door behind her, Twilight took a breath. Sorry, Zecora. This isn’t going to be a happy visit. Gently, she levitated the evidence bags over to the table and placed them next to the vial, ignoring the way Zecora’s smile faded at the sight.

“I think we’ve had a breakthrough,” said Twilight, “but it raises more questions than it answers.”

Pinkie forced her face up to look. “What’s… broken… through? Can I… fix it?”

Zecora shushed her gently and peered closer. “These golden grains are from the flower?
I’m sorry, friend. I must be dour,
For I have neither skill nor power
To tell the nature of that flower.”

For the first time in hours, Twilight realized her eyeballs were burning. She hadn’t noticed it in the forest, not when the rest of her had been burning with fear and doubt, and twitching at every shifting shadow. But now she could see a future full of Zecora’s fury aiming directly at her face.

“Neither did I, at first,” she said. “The tests didn’t work no matter what I tried. But…”

I was worried about Spike. So much mucus pouring out of his nose every second we were there! He’s OK away from it, but then it gets worse whenever he’s around that thing! It’s doing something to him! I know it!

“…I thought it best to examine the pollen. Most of it was just that, but there were a few strains of something else mixed in.”

“There’s a fungus in there too!” shouted Spike, hopping on the spot. “We caught it! That is what’s in the bag right now! Those are its spores! We were looking in the wrong place the whole time! I’m a genius!”

“Spike!” snapped Twilight.

“Well, I suggested we take a look, didn’t I? OK, OK.” He waved a hand airily. “And Twilight helped too, I guess, doin’ her chemo-thingy. But I told her we should check as much as possible to be sure, right Twilight?”

Zecora pursed her lips. “A fungal spore? How can this be?
It clearly was a plant to me.”

“It’s both,” said Twilight. “Maybe it’s nothing, but in any case it gives us a potential opening for future hypothesis testing. I wanted to know what you could make of it.” Feeling this was slightly too bossy, she added, “Uh, please.”

At the table, Pinkie’s wobbling hooves eased across for the vial. They ignored the stopper being yanked out by her teeth, looked away when she spat it out – it bounced off the floor – and then tried not to listen to the chugging that followed. After the chugging stopped, Zecora disappeared into a side room behind a tiger-skin curtain.

“Please seat yourselves beside the Pie,” came her voice from behind it.
“I’ll bring some special tea that I
Had put aside for future visits.
I think you’ll find it quite exquisite!”

Spike and Twilight shrugged to each other and sat down. To Spike’s left, Pinkie was rising from the table and her cheeks were bulging distressingly. Both of them shuffled an inch away from her.

“You feeling better, Pinkie?” tried Spike. She merely nodded, tightening her lips. “Haha, that must have been a king-sized banquet if it could stop the likes of you!”

“Spike, don’t make fun of her,” said Twilight, who’d suspected the same thing. To the curtain and the crashing of iron and plates, she continued, “I’m not sure what to make of that plant, if I’m honest. I’m hoping – really, honestly hoping – it’s nothing worse than a hemiparasite.”

Zecora called back from her side room, “A parasite I know, but not
The ‘hemi’ kind, else I forgot.”

“I mean that it’s obviously taking nutrients from Fluttershy, but if it’s absorbing sunlight, then that suggests it’s photosynthesizing. Like mistletoe. It might simply take what it wants and then wilt and disappear. Once it’s shed its spores and pollen grains, that’s more or less it. But I can’t shake the feeling that the fungus changes it somehow.”

A grunt came from the room, followed by sloshing water. “In any case, the real trouble
Is quarantined within the bubble.
No, Twilight, now you’d better turn
To Rainbow’s being taciturn
To Fluttershy, and Flutter’s sadness
Convincing her she caused the madness.”

Zecora strode in, balancing four cups along her spine. Twilight levitated them off her. One for each, she thought, and she watched them land neatly before each pony when Zecora joined the table.

“What do you mean?” said Twilight. “That plant’s the biggest issue at the moment.”

Spike and Pinkie took tentative sips first, Pinkie wincing when her stomach growled in complaint. No one spoke for a while, all four of them taking a long draught before placing their mugs down in unison.

“I understand, but you must see,” said Zecora,
“That once we have that remedy,
A friendship problem will remain
Between two mares who’d both disdain
To hurt each other, yet who wince.
We must make efforts to convince
These two good friends to reconcile
And not lose sight of what’s worthwhile.”

Easier said than done, thought Twilight. Nevertheless, she stared at the gold grains under the sheen of the plastic evidence bags. Although Applejack and Rarity had dropped by every now and then, and Pinkie had – until the last few hours – poked her head through the window or the chimney or the mouse hole in Fluttershy’s den, Rainbow hadn’t visited the cottage at all.

Knowing my luck, there’s probably a connection. “Zecora, do you think this plant could be responding to their emotions? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

An almighty belch ripped through the air. Spike, Twilight, and Zecora shielded their mugs as best they could. The evidence bags tumbled onto the woody floor. One vial bounced and tinkled after it.

Finally, Pinkie patted herself on the barrel belly, which deflated. “Huh. It was all gas. Who knew?”

“Wow!” yelled Spike. “Even Big Mac couldn’t top that belch, even with all the fizzy apple cider he drinks. That’s a record! I gotta write this down! Can you do it again? I wanna know the technique you used.”

“Don’t use the –” Twilight sighed at the scratching of his pen. “That paper was for serious study! This isn’t important!”

“Relax. I’ll leave some space. Besides, I’m the official scribe, aren’t I? You’re not the boss of me.” For such a little dragon, he could certainly make his grin go far.

Shaking her head, Zecora continued, “I do not know, but maybe so.
That trait would not surprise me, though;
In all my travels, I have found
Emotion makes the world go round.
For magic rests on inner life
And little could compete with strife
Between two friends, for feelings strong
Can change the world for right or wrong.”

“Oh.” Twilight peered into the ripples of her mug, trying to find something in the blank eyes, the dull mouth, or the drooping ears peering back. “There’s magic in there, true, but nothing’s guaranteed. I don’t know what it means yet.”

After a much weaker belch to clear the throat, Pinkie tapped the tabletop. “Oh, I met all kinds of strange creatures when I was just an itty-bitty little filly out on the rock farm. Anything that tries to eat rocks has to be strange, doncha think?”

Wisely, Twilight refrained from commenting at this point.

“I remember you telling us stories, Pinkie,” said Spike, who’d diplomatically noticed Twilight’s example. “Like the parasprites you led away from all your crops with polka music. I always wondered where you picked up your musical talents from.”

“Aw, aren’t you a gem?” Pinkie patted him on his head, flattening his green spikes. “As in a ‘nice little dragon’! I mean it’s obvious you’re not a real gem, though your scales are very shiny, and your head’s shaped kinda like a cabochon. I learned that one from Rarity!”

“Thanks!” said Spike. To Twilight, he whispered, “That’s a good thing, right?”

“And if magic monsters can be put in a funk by a bit of folk polka playing, maybe plants can be too! Hey, I deserve a cookie for that.” Hoof thudded tabletop. “Waiter, cookies for three please! One for me, one for myself, and one for I!”

Zecora rolled her eyes. “You’ve barely swallowed down my cure
And now you’re looking out for more?
Perhaps I’ll chant a mystic rite
And take away your appetite.”

Grinning, Zecora began to mutter under her breath until Pinkie waved a hoof urgently. “You wish to speak, Miss Pinkie Pie?”

“Uh,” Pinkie said, her mouth chuckling while her eyes tried to have nothing to do with it. “On second thought… I suppose I could… simply be happy I said something helpful. You know? For its own sake?”

Chuckles met her in kind from Zecora’s lips. “No need to fret; I would not ply
My humble trade to take your pleasure
Of food away, if that’s your treasure.
Although I hope you’ll take it easy,
Or else you’ll end up feeling queasy.”

Again, Twilight found herself peering into her mug. “I know about their friendship problem, and if it’s a factor, then I can’t ignore it. But I don’t know how to deal with it either. Fluttershy refuses to go see Rainbow Dash when I talk to her about it. I don’t want to let them drift apart, but I can’t force them to get along.”

“O most noble and wise, Twilight!” Pinkie winked at her, and then downed her mug in one go. Once she’d slammed it down, she hummed with joy and continued, “Now you know what the problem is, knowing is half the cure! What next? Ooh, ooh! Maybe a song and a dance will get them to change their minds? Everyone lightens up when there’s a chance for a chant, and we could make up lines for a sing-along, like ‘O Rainbow Dash, don’t be so brash, just hear your heart, and be a part, of a warm and wonderful, deep and powerful, sweet and magical frieeeendshiiiiip’ –”

Warningly, Zecora shook her head and shushed her into silence.

Outside the hut, the howling winds rose to a roaring tide. So much peace had settled around the cauldron fire, the steaming mugs, and the soothing scents of exotic perfumes and potions that this forced its way in and jolted them awake.

“I don’t think a song’s going to help, Pinkie,” said Twilight, while next to her Spike glanced at the windows and shuddered. “For something like this, you need a disinterested third party. Someone who won’t be influenced by their feelings.”

“Eh? I wouldn’t go that far,” said Pinkie warily. “I mean, you need to take some interest in the problem, right?”

“No, it means –”

“It means trying to get a clear view of things without, you know, making any assumptions or having a personal stake in it,” piped up Spike. “Disinterested isn’t the same as uninterested. Of course we’re interested in helping them! We just don’t want to make any mistakes. It’s like being dispassionate. Er… or calm. Level-headed? Ah, you know what I mean. Twilight taught me that one when I was in Canterlot.”

Why is he interrupting me? Despite her better, cooler thoughts, Twilight seethed under the boiling waters coming up her chest. He doesn’t have to show off all the time. And it’s rude to butt in.

All mugs emptied, Zecora disappeared into the side room and then reappeared with a plate of brownies on her back. This time, Twilight made a point of placing them on the opposite side from Pinkie Pie, who drooped and moaned at the treats beyond her.

“Regardless of their inner strife,
And though it gives that plant some life,
It would be wise to wait them out
So that your words will have more clout.
Though friendship is a fragile gift,
It’s up to them to heal the rift;
For only once they’ve grasped the difference
Would it be wise to grant assistance.”

Twilight took a deep breath and stuffed a brownie in her mouth. It tasted herbal, almost minty; as she chewed, the sugar rushed down her jaw and her mouth lightened with a fresh, cleansing air permeating her soft, fleshy insides. A pink leg slithered up from under the table and wormed over to the brownies. Zecora glared at it until it stopped, and then glared at Pinkie until she withdrew the leg.

For a few seconds, they listened to the roaring outside. Branches whipped each other. Distant creatures cried out in a cacophony of panic. Finally, the roar subsided.

Zecora, turning to Twilight, sighed and weighed a brownie on her hoof. “A storm now rages inside you.
Twilight, my friend; what can I do?”

Twilight didn’t dare look at Spike. “It’s nothing.”

The hum in reply carried the low note of disbelief. “In any case, there are no harms
To seek, in silence, sweetened balms;
Perhaps you’d like to meditate
And so achieve a calmer state.”

“Oh, it’s going to be one of those sessions,” said Spike, and he rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll help clean up, in that case. Never been one for sitting around doing nothing. Unless it’s sleeping, natch.”

Walking around the two of them, Spike picked up the mugs and stacked them on his hands. Pinkie cast a glance to the others, followed him into the side room, and yelled something indistinct when Zecora shook her head irritably.

Twilight closed her eyes. Guiltily, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited Zecora for tea. Ah, me. This is like old times. How long has it been? Weeks? Months?

“Breathe in…” murmured Zecora.

Twilight’s chest strained before the swelling lungs. She forced her ribs to expand that little bit further. Just like they used to teach in Canterlot before exams…

“Breathe out…”

Shoulders slumped, head bowed down, and stomach crumpled and aching, Twilight let out what felt like burning air and squirmed a little inside. Can you actually feel bad breath?

It was too much like school again. She’d only wanted to try out that calming technique, all those years ago, yet she could feel the memories in her muscles trying to force her into a ball. They didn’t have to chuckle under their breaths. Those leg-stretching exercises were important to help visualize the movement of air to and fro. So what if they looked a little funny? I mean, I didn’t care. It worked. Why should I have cared how it looked?

“…and concentrate,” intoned Zecora. Something made of iron crashed in the side room. Straining not to growl, her voice continued:
“Detach yourself; achieve a state
In which you are outside your self.”

They both distinctly heard a “whoops” and a second crash. Zecora took another, much huffier breath before continuing normally.

“A calm mare browsing library shelves
All filled with thoughts, your secret dreams,
Your moods, your loves, your conscious streams,
All of your life. But only look;
You are the reader, not the book.”

I am the reader, I am the reader, Twilight thought. The echoes of classroom sneers faded, but she could sense them nearby, ready to jump into her mind again. Detach yourself. You are not the book.

“Ow!” Spike yelled out. She almost bit her tongue.

“You OK in there, Spike?” she shouted.

“I’m peachy! Just dropped something on my foot. Don’t mind us.”

Pinkie said something, but with her mouth utterly stuffed, not a word made it out in one piece. Beside Twilight, Zecora muttered something sharp in her native tongue.

Spike’s a dragon. Don’t worry about him. Dragons are strong. He says it often enough.

She opened her eyes, and cursed herself for breaking ranks. Still, she’d never quite grasped meditation. Every time she saw the effortless way that, say, Zecora could balance on a stick while humming to herself, something hot and prickly savaged the inside of her chest.

“Zecora, can I ask you a few questions?” she said. “I don’t think this is something I can put off.”

Apparently under her trance, the zebra’s closed eyes and mouth twisted up in a frown. “You always were a clingy mind.
Tranquillity you cannot find
By getting caught within the web
Of life; such troubles flow and ebb –”

“What happened the day you and Fluttershy went out into the Everfree?” She hadn’t meant it to come out as a snap, and instantly she softened her tone against the raised eyebrow. “I don’t care if I’m getting in too deep. I want to help. This is important.”

To her surprise, she saw Zecora shrink slightly where she stood. One moment ago, the zebra had been towering, shining where her stripes were light and deepening to midnight purity where they were dark. Now, she was just a pony with funny colours.

“I understand your great concern,
But meditation helps you learn
To stop attachment’s blinding glare:
With neutral stance, yet still with care,
Can one approach another’s plight;
For scientists as for mystics, right?”

“Will you please tell me what happened?” Twilight willed herself to be calm. You’re avoiding the question. And I know the old “change the subject and flatter me” trick. Spike uses it all the time.

As though prompted by her errant thought, Spike chose that moment to push the tiger-skin curtain aside. “Hey, Zecora! Can I have these oatmeal cookies in the creepy mask box thing?”

Zecora buried her face in her hooves. “My word, he’s caught her gluttony!
Oh, if you must, but tell Pinkie
She cannot snoop around my house
And search for treats like she’s a mouse.”

Spike smirked. “Oh, I didn’t need Pinkie to teach me how to eat. You should have seen what I was packing away when I was little. You remember when I ate your cousin’s wedding cake, Twilight? Haha, now that was a special event!”

It was, thought Twilight sadly when he vanished again. It was one of the worst moments of my young life. Then again, he’d always been kind of self-sufficient: rooting out family jewel boxes from drawers, ignoring other ponies’ pets or showing fangs and claws to those that bothered him, sneaking out windows and opened doors to crawl around Canterlot for a warm roof to sleep on.

Coming out of her reminiscence, she found Zecora’s face twisted up and her eyes downcast. “Twilight, I often search the Everfree
For better kinds of remedy,
For herbs and spices, roots and flowers,
For medicines with magic powers.
It’s only fair you understand
That my intentions weren’t all grand.
I wish to help, but that’s one part;
I do it just because it’s art.
You see me as a kindly nurse,
But I’m afraid that I am worse
Than I would seem. So I confess,
Before I get this off my chest
That it’s not easy to reveal
A shameful side I could conceal.”

Munching sounds from the side room did nothing to ruin the quiet stares they were giving the tabletop. Brightly, Twilight gave a cheesy grin.

“Oh, come on, Zecora,” she said. “No one’s perfect. I’m sure you’d never do something, you know, bad –”

She shut up under the calm stare Zecora raised from the table. Tendrils sparked behind her cheeks, and she realized she was blushing.

Thankfully, Zecora’s lips eased into a smile. “I thank you for your strong belief
That I would never cause you grief.
Alas, if only it were true!
Yet I must disillusion you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight could see the green scales peeking out from the doorway, not all hidden behind the tiger-skin curtain. Frantic shushing stopped the munching sounds. If Zecora could hear them, then she let nothing show on her face.

“When I was but a tiny filly,
The others thought that I was silly:
Eating herbs that just weren’t food,
Correcting tutors, being rude
To anyone who didn’t know
A bison from a buffalo.
They stopped me brewing secret spells
And stealing tools. I was expelled
From classes, but I didn’t care.
For I was cold and debonair.
What did it mean to be alone?
First chance I had, I ran from home
And lived a charming nomad’s life
Hitching lifts, avoiding strife.
I had my potions, and my travel;
My friends were grass and winds and gravel.
I listened to the wisest mares,
And always I applied my wares
Until I was the greatest sage!”

Breaking Twilight out of whatever spell she’d slipped into, Zecora turned her back to the unicorn. Her hoof eased over to the fallen evidence bag. Sighing, she scooped it up and peered at the golden contents under her snout.

“Ah,” she muttered. “So much pride at such an age…”

I know what you mean, thought Twilight. I could be like that too when I was at Celestia’s school. Aw, but Professor Dihydrogen Monoxide always gave me an extra gold star for my work. I can still smell the old chemical stink of the cauldrons we used to work on, and how I could make the flames any colour I wanted. She even put flasks up on the shelf with my name on the label. She said she even showed the older students what I’d created.

Then her gaze caught Spike’s green sheen, and the smile died on her muzzle.

Zecora half-ambled, half-hopped over to her workbench. Pushing aside mortars and glassware from pocket flasks to bucket-sized beakers, she laid the bag down and reached across for what looked like a crescent of iris-sized cabochons. She held their triangular brass frame clasped between frog and pastern, raising it like a fan, and then hunched over. From the table, Twilight couldn’t see what she was doing, but the zebra was stiff with concentration.

“Eventually, I travelled here,” she said while she worked.
“And what a paradise appeared
To my young eyes! A florist’s range
Where no plant was considered strange,
Where rainbows shone upon the ground
And prankster flowers could be found,
Where meadows sang and forests lurked
And farmers reaped all kinds of work!
A garden fit for devotees
Of herbal crafts and botanies.
Of course, the ponies weren’t my friends;
A stranger’s strangeness will offend
Those of a nervous disposition.
But why would I show them contrition?
I was a harmless hermit type.
My young ambition fresh and ripe.
The Everfree was just the place
To reach the end of wisdom’s race.”

Twilight stuffed another brownie into her mouth. Not me. I didn’t need to run away from home. Why would I? I remember every hall in Celestia’s School. How the mares and stallions in white coats always stood around outside the lecture halls, never talking, just waiting to be let in. What wouldn’t I have given to go in after them?

And when I got my pass, oh that day! That DAY! I found so many treasures: quantum mechanics, theories of evolution, the entire history of the geocentric revolution, all the secrets of minerals and stars and the pictures of ravens and dolphins solving complex mathematical puzzles for treats. The possibilities were endless!

I would have given anything to be able to tell someone about it. Smarty Pants doesn’t count. She was just a doll. Mom and Dad were always busy. Celestia and Shining Armour had their duties. No one else cared.

Spike certainly didn’t care. All he did was sleep and eat and scare us by wandering off when we weren’t expecting it.

No! Don’t think about Spike back then!

The curtain fluttered. Spike and Pinkie wandered back in, making Zecora spin around with a start. She was still holding the crescent.

“Yummy cookies!” said Pinkie. Her tongue lashed out and whipped around her muzzle. “Now that’s a recipe for me! Hey, Zecora, if I bring some of the Cakes’ treats over one day, could we have a baked goods party? Everyone’s gotta try your stuff! It’s like waking up, even when you’re already awake!”

Twilight and Zecora exchanged winces that said: probably best not to let that secret recipe get out. Either they’d queue out the door for more, or they’d give her funny looks when she visited town again.

“Never mind her,” said Twilight, grinning. “Look, Zecora, I’m fascinated. Really, I am. But so what if you were a bit, well, uh… aloof back then? It’s different now. You’ve changed so much. You’ve got friends. You’re an amazing help to ponies who need cures. You’re one of the smartest pon – zebras I’ve ever met.”

“Besides,” Spike said, “what does this have to do with Fluttershy anyway?”

He wilted under the heat of Zecora’s glare. Around her face, red patches glowed. To Twilight’s surprise, the glare pinned her down where she sat too.

“Have I, indeed? Zecora, changed?
Then mark my words: don’t be deranged!
You want to know what happened, then,
To Fluttershy, your kindly friend?
I asked if she could give me aid
In case of creatures that had strayed
Into the patch where I had sought
To find new cures, or so I thought.
You see, though I have mellowed since
I still retain a shameful glimpse
Of youthful pride, and careless haste
Had prompted foolish me to waste
A darkened evening in a region
Where mystery and chance were legion!”

No one dared to speak. Even Pinkie was pretending to be interested in a knothole on the wall. Outside, the winds roared up again.

In a softer voice, Zecora continued, “Of course, I could resist my pride
Enough to go with such a guide
Who’d tamed great beasts and calmed the brutes;
For though I could resist the roots
Of evil plants, I’m not at home
Resisting horrors that spit and foam.
But creatures lurking in the dark
Of Everfree are ever marked,
Like poisoned storms, with local taint.
They’re soon immune to our restraint.
Yes! Fluttershy was not so keen
To test her might, but I was mean
And wanted only to be seen
As one smart mare, not some has-been
Who’d lost the art of alchemy
To softer whims, so gallantry
In Fluttershy was what I tried
With subtle words to bring alive
By calling it a friendly deed,
Replacing ‘like’ and ‘want’ with ‘need’.
She bowed her head, and soon agreed.
My trickery beguiled the steed!”

Spike opened his mouth, but then clamped it shut behind claws rising up to smother it. Under the flickering flames of the cauldron’s fire, Twilight could see his wide eyes shimmering.

“But,” he quavered, “that’s not like you. Maybe you feel bad because it didn’t turn out great. So what? You were unlucky. Everyone gets unlucky some of the time. Take it from me: all you gotta do is get up, dust yourself off, and keep going!”

Yes. You were good at that. Twilight could see him as a baby again. For one moment, he’d been snoozing on some belfry and ignoring her shouts and waving limbs. A few ponies of fine dresses and dapper dinner jackets had gathered around to watch, and she’d shouted louder and gnashed her teeth and growled, because he was making her look stupid. How dare he? She only had to take care of him for a few hours before one of the royal nursery ponies came to collect. Celestia had insisted she share a turn. It wasn’t fair. He never did this on anyone else’s watch.

And then he came tumbling down from the purple spire of the Canterlot tower. No one was sure whether he’d slipped or whether he’d jumped off like the stupid dragon they’d said he was. He’d bounced off each sloping roof and projecting windowsill with a grunt each time, before he finally tumbled off the roof of a parked cart and hit the road.

How she’d screamed! How she’d rushed forwards, wishing she’d never shouted a word at him, saying “sorry” over and over…

…only to find him utterly unhurt by it. Crying his eyes out, and curling up into a ball, and batting hooves away whenever they tried lifting him up, but utterly unhurt. No broken bones. No bruises. Not so much as a weaker flame, as she’d soon found out while passing detector spells across him, feeling her face burning.

Yet she’d still cried. Celestia would know: that had been the first thought popping into her filly head. Years later, she wished she’d thought something less selfish.

“I’m with the dragon!” said Pinkie. “You’re a good friend, and that is that! There’s no way you’d be nasty to one of us. I bet Rainbow knew what you were doin’, am I right?”

Zecora dumped the crescent onto her workbench and folded her front limbs. “Astute, aren’t you, Miss Pinkie Pie?
I did hear sense from Fluttershy
And so agreed to notify
The one whose purpose was to fly
And watch the Everfree for weather
To make sure crises here would never
Become a threat to Ponyville.
Of course, who else would choose the thrill
And who was there to watch the crash
Of light and thunder?”

“Rainbow Dash!” said Spike.

Zecora nodded, but curtly, as though daring her own face to break up if she tried it with any enthusiasm. Beside her, Pinkie hopped up to the bench and lifted up the bag with both hooves, holding it up to the firelight.

“So…” she said. “Watcher doin’? You got any sciency ideas? Eureka moment comin’ up? What a sweet word that is, doncha think? ‘Eureka’! Heeheehee. It sounds like ‘you reek ‘o’. Eureka doughtnuts! Eureka mud! Eureka someone chewin’ cud!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight noticed Spike taking a step backwards. Even after all her talks to him, he refused to get close to the bag and its contents.

Zecora waved a hoof for the bag to be returned. Grinning sheepishly, Pinkie placed it on the workbench and whistled her way over to the shelves, where she pretended to be reading the labels.

“I think I have a better clue,” said Zecora, sliding a book across the surface and opening it,
“About this thing, but what to do?
If in my journal it’s described,
Perhaps old cures can be revived.”

“Wow.” Pinkie tapped each bottle in turn. “Lots of cures. We could find anything here.”

“Yeah!” Spike hopped onto her back, not noticing her grunt when he leaned on her mess of hair. “Hey, look at this one, Twilight! Fire seed extract. Sounds delicious!”

“Spike!” Twilight snapped. “Don’t touch anything! You don’t know what it’s for!”

“I wasn’t going to touch it,” he said, but he withdrew his claws all the same. “We’re only looking. Sheesh.”

“Nevertheless, it’s too tempting for you to pick stuff up and ‘look at it’.” Twilight strode around the table and the cauldron to keep a better eye on the pair. “That’s Zecora’s property, and fragile and dangerous too. You don’t want an accident.”

“That’s OK, Twilight.” Pinkie winked at her. “I got my eye on him.” She groaned as Spike shifted his weight on her withers. “No… accidents… on my watch. Ow.”

“Sorry,” said Spike. “I wanted to look at the ones on top.”

“Just don’t fall, OK?” said Twilight, and then wondered why she’d said it. Pinkie was hardly a towering figure, and besides, he’d shrugged off falls from ladders before.

Still with her back to them, Zecora flicked a chunk of the book’s pages over. The wad of yellowing leaves snapped together.

“I found the plant, and then decided
To have a piece of leaf divided.
I wanted to discover whether
It was another priceless treasure.
Ah me, how much did it excite
To find the fruits of day and night
Be so rewarded with a find?
The joyful thrill had cursed my mind.
Had I been but a little wary
Of bounty in a place so scary,
I never would have dropped my guard.
Alas, I learned that lesson hard!”

Bottles tinkled. When they both looked up, Spike folded his arms quickly. The last vial settled into place.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Drops of sweat pricked Twilight’s brow. She could still hear the vial clinking against its fellows even after they’d all stopped…

Keep away from those things, she thought desperately. She could almost feel her leg muscles stretching her forwards as though they were trying to re-enact the memory. She could hear her filly self thinking, Well, he is a dragon. He eats gems. He can’t be all that soft inside.

She’d been delighted, practically singing her way around the small bedroom while tubes bubbled and the packets and jars lay empty all around her. So many new mixes and chemistry theories to explore! She still had the poster of the periodic table somewhere, not that it mattered when she could recite the whole thing without it. Perhaps her parents still kept her old chemistry set too, hidden away in the attic. She’d never found out, not after she’d locked it away.

Nonetheless, that hadn’t happened yet, and she could now see the baby dragon sitting up on the bed. His bubble of a face had swirled with frowns and wide eyed wonder and winces while she’d lectured him happily about a potion that could give wings to those who drank it. He’d even copied her smirk when she’d told him the name she’d invented for it: the Sparkle-Spike Pseudopegasine Pteratrophic Elixir.

“I used to get carried away with discovery all the time,” she murmured dreamily. Shaking herself awake, she added, “It’s OK, Zecora. I know where you’re coming from.”

Too late, she noticed Pinkie shaking her head at her, lips thin and eyes wide. Beyond Spike’s oblivious perusal of the shelves, Zecora pressed a hoof against her forehead.

“Too readily do you forgive,” she mumbled,
“Though friendship’s your prerogative,
Twilight, I fear you’re overreaching
If you don’t think that you are teaching
Others to dismiss their errors.
You can’t imagine what grave terrors
I’ve now unleashed upon your friends,
For my own greedy, selfish ends.”

“But I can!” insisted Twilight, taking a step towards her. “Celestia always taught me to be compassionate and to think about others, but I was too busy studying to take it seriously. It just sounded like wishy-washy sappiness to me. I didn’t make a single friend until I came to Ponyville. No pony’s perfect. Your own teachings say how important it is to accept that sometimes you’re going to do things you’ll later regret. Remember that book of ancient wise mares and gurus and healers and magicians and philosophers you showed me? It’s all in there.”

The memory, having ebbed away from her words, now flowed over her mind once more. She’d lowered the spoon from young Spike’s dribbling mouth.

“There,” she said. The filly levitated her clipboard and pen, adjusting the infant-sized collar of her lab coat costume. “Now we’re going to collect all sorts of scientific data. Start by telling me how you feel.”

The baby dragon gurgled and groaned. Smoky wisps flickered out of his nostrils with each breath.

“What’s that?” said the filly, scribbling this down. “Come on, I can’t write down my results if you don’t talk to me.”

He opened his mouth again, and stuck out a forked tongue that was turning purple. Even through the officious shield of her playacting and the cotton stuffing of exciting dreams, panic sliced onwards and pricked her chest. Poison leaked out where it had hit.

“Er… Spike? You OK?” she said. “You’re starting to sway a bit. Want a ruby gateau? I got one specially from Cinnamon Chai’s today.”

To her horror, he flopped onto his side, clutched his stomach, and started grunting with effort. Bits of him were shaking. She saw the green ooze dribbling from his nose like a polluted creek. He was staring at nothing.

“Spike! Stop it!” She began backing away, inching towards the door.

How could he do this to her? He’d never reacted this way before. Not once had he done anything worse than burp. She only wanted to give him wings. He should’ve stomached it easily. She’d checked all the ingredients, all the books, all the professors’ written words after she’d interrogated them yesterday. She didn’t know what to do. It should have been safe.

Then he began howling and rolling over the duvet. Twilight dropped her clipboard and galloped out onto the landing, yelling “MOM! DAD!” at the top of her lungs.

It should have been safe for ponies, she realized later. By then, she was sitting outside the door, trying to hear what was going on inside, trying to forget the way her parents had looked at her, hoping against hope Celestia would never, ever find out.

“Twilight?” said Pinkie. “You OK?”

Everything blurred – pink and purple curled around each other amid splatters of brown and grey – and she hastily wiped her eyes. Twilight nodded. She didn’t dare try speaking against whatever had seized her throat now.

“So… uh… what happened after that, Zecora?” said Spike, but she noticed him glance at her. Does he suspect?

As though caught out, Zecora stopped staring at Twilight and hung her head low over the workbench. “What do you think? I tried to cut
A piece to take back to my hut.
My ignorance brought me too close.
My arrogance dropped me a dose
Of carelessness: I took the bait.
The plant began to shift its weight.
You can imagine how I screeched
When roots and bulbs began to reach
For my own face. A vicious cane!
A thorny bridle, growing reins!
Its stem now curling like a lash,
Its flowers whipped round in a flash,
And then its roots from ridge now hurdled
At my face. How my blood curdled!
When I saw that hairy feeler
Rising up to me, a healer!
Yet saved was I by Flutter’s speed,
For when she saw a friend in need
She did not pause, but pushed away
My worthless self. Oh, woe the day!
For being selfless, brave, and nice,
Her curse is now my wretched price.
By saving me from my own crime
She may be cursed for endless time.”

Twilight stared at Spike, yet somehow she wasn’t seeing him. She was seeing a gap over Pinkie’s head, a Spike-shaped hole that might never have been filled.

Her parents hadn’t spoken to her for a week. Twilight never found out where exactly they’d taken him – the vet, the hospital, the academy’s healer department for volunteers – but she remembered hiding in her room with the curtains drawn up. Celestia’s school used to be her heaven. Now it had become a hell. Where once she’d have gotten polite smiles or at least uncaring faces, for that week there’d been suspicious looks and mutterings and the odd shouted curse. Even her tutors had flinched slightly on the two occasions when she’d dared raise a hoof in class.

They’d let it pass by the end of the week. Spike had come back, apparently no worse for wear. She hadn’t heard what the strange stallion who’d returned him had said at the time. Presumably, she’d never wanted to hear it.

And then one evening, her parents had spoken the dreaded words through the muffling bedroom door. Celestia had come at last.

“May I come in, Twilight?” said the Princess.

The filly squeaked a reply. Some stab of pride pushed her head out from under the duvet, but the sight of Princess Celestia standing in her sorry excuse for a bedroom kept the covers up to her chin.

“You understand why I’m here, Twilight Sparkle.” Her voice wasn’t cold, but it didn’t remind her of sunlight or crackling hearths. It was as if death itself could speak: flat, monotone, matter-of-fact.

Too shaken to speak, Twilight nodded instead. She noticed how the Princess’ gaze flitted over to the empty chemistry set. She didn’t dare touch it anymore.

Princess Celestia held a steady gaze. “I will not frighten you with further punishment – as I understand it, your parents and peers have already taken care of that – but I must help you understand how serious your actions were.”

Twilight wanted to say “I know”, but the words barely managed to reach her throat. Perhaps if she was still and silent enough, this week would end faster.

“I understand your frustrations in looking after Spike. Ignorance about dragon mores and habits is regrettably a common theme, despite many attempts to handle them. Even my Canterlot caretakers experience trouble while looking after him. I admit I was unsure how you’d manage; young as you are, you possess a tremendous amount of talent and skill. Better yet, my tutors inform me that your spark burns brightly in the classroom. Rest assured, whatever else happens, you are still my protégé, and I still see a dedicated pupil worthy of my time.”

Twilight was still looking away, but now the strain made her neck throb and her eyes water. Princess Celestia being nice was worse than any shouting. She could feel her chest crushing itself, trying to squeeze herself out of the world.

“However,” continued the dead voice, “this is not behaviour I can tolerate. When we agreed to our current arrangement, I offered to take Spike off your hooves so that you would not feel overwhelmed. You declined. You agreed to take care of him to the best of your ability, on the condition that you’d seek my help if it became too much for you.” The sigh, the brief calm before the rumble of the darkening sky… “With that in mind, would you please explain why you did this?”

She didn’t remember anything afterwards but the dam bursting in her chest. Something inside her broke, and kept breaking. Her eyes were melting and her face puffy and raw. A slender limb embraced her round the head.

“I don’t know…” she moaned. “I don’t know…”

“Shh,” soothed the voice, more warmly than before.

“Spike…” was all she could say before her words stretched into nothing but long, painful groans.

“I understand. You and Spike have a special relationship,” she heard Celestia say somewhere over her head. “Your ability to hatch his egg when no one else could wasn’t just an act of powerful magic. Whatever else happens, you two were meant to be together. You understand that now, don’t you?”

She did.

She had.

But weeks had gone by, and then months, and then years, and to her horror, she realized she’d forgotten it several times since.

Glass smashed on the floor. Zecora broke out into a stream of exotic cursing.

Blinking, Twilight peered down at the shards radiating from Pinkie’s hooves. Both she and Spike grimaced at the mess.

“Sorry,” he said. “Um… I could pay for it?”

“I’ll clean it up,” said Twilight at once, horn already glowing. The gold, oozing liquid rose up and curled into a shimmering purple ball until she could summon an empty vial from the bench. It slid inside and floated up to the gap on the shelf.

Staring up at the shelf, Zecora stuck out a hoof. “A moment, Twilight, if you please
Would pass that sunflower oil to me?”

Twilight levitated the vial over to her before Zecora shook her head and pointed at another one. Spike hopped up and grabbed it – making Pinkie wince when he landed on her head and then on her back – to carry it over.

“You got an idea?” he said.

“Thank you Spike. I think I’ve got
A theory that explains a lot.
But let me test these golden spores
Before I tell you any more.
Twilight, please would you use your magic
To stop events from turning tragic?”

No one spoke while Zecora held up the bag. Twilight focused, opened up the zip lock, watched Zecora’s head tilt, and levitated a few grains into the dish.

Twilight and Spike exchanged glances while the zebra then tipped the sunflower oil over the lot. Pinkie scratched her shoulder with a back hoof.

“As I suspected…” murmured Zecora. Fizzing noises bubbled out of the dish.

Twilight hurried forwards in time to see the golden dust blacken and sizzle under the oil. Soon, nothing was left but a few ashes under a gold veneer.

Zecora turned around. “Seems to me
This is a fungus happily
Growing on a sunflower host
That’s been corrupted so it’s most
Hospitable for its new guest.
Such parasites will often best
The hard defences of their prey.
We have gallfungus here today.”

“Gallfungus?” Twilight shook her head. “The name sounds familiar, but I’m not sure why.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” moaned Spike, clutching his cheeks. All faces turned to him. “I heard one of my Canterlot caretakers mention it once. There was a plague in the Canterlot Botanical Gardens centuries ago. It wiped out a whole load of plants, and then disappeared. No one ever found out where it came from.”

“How do you –” Twilight began, and then bit her tongue back. “I mean, what else do you know?”

“I don’t know anything else! It was just something they mentioned once. They didn’t say anything about it infecting ponies!”

“Uh… Can it infect ponies?” Pinkie quavered, backing away from the bench.

“There were only five possible infectees nearby before I put the plant under a shield spell.” Twilight peered at the leftover spores in the bag. “I don’t think so. Gallfungus… gallfungus… Zecora, do you have a mycological guidebook, by any chance?”

One was dutifully placed on the bench. Twilight skimmed the pages, ignoring the three looking over her withers. She knew what she was looking for now. Catching a fragment of the word, she slapped the page down and ran her gaze along the text.

“It’s a plant parasite.” She tapped the paragraph emphatically. Unlike the other entries, there was no accompanying picture. “Gallfungus can’t infect an animal directly, so it transforms its plant host and converts it into a parasite on its behalf. That means we should be safe from direct infection, but… that doesn’t explain the spores.”

“Why not?” said Pinkie.

“Because,” said Spike, “spores are how funguses make more funguses. They’re like really little seeds. We can’t be infected, so it’s pointless shedding ‘em around us. How come there’s no picture of this thing? That would help.”

“It wouldn’t help us much,” said Twilight. “The gallfungus has no fruiting body. It’s entirely a network of rhizomorphic filaments. It’d just look like a load of tangled netting.”

She and Spike breathed a sigh of relief until Pinkie pointed and said, “What’s that bit?”

Following her leg, Twilight read onwards. Her ears drooped the further she went. Over her shoulder, she heard Spike gasp, and then he gripped her foreleg tightly.

“Zecora?” said Twilight in the slow, deliberate air of one trying to stop their heart exploding. “When you found the plant, was it growing on anything? You know… in particular?”

“You mean the boulder coloured white
That was half-buried at the site?”

Twilight’s brain tried not to think about what it was doing while her mouth moved on. “Did it have lumps and stripy gaps, by any chance?”

Even as she spoke, she could almost imagine the site in her mind. There must have been a misshapen mass of mud, a window open on top where the plant had abandoned it, and, through that window, a corrugated white bulge with more mud running down the strip-like gaps.

Behind her, Zecora hummed to herself. “How interesting. That’s what I saw.
But what conclusion can you draw?”

Everyone knew the stories, thought Twilight, her insides fizzing and melting away. Ponies go into the forest, but none come out. And the last time that storm hit, there must have been pegasi caught and thrown in. It doesn’t even have to be the plant’s fault: anything could’ve happened in that forest.

But then how does that explain the Devil’s Garden? If it really wasn’t the plant’s fault, then it should have ended up anywhere, not right in the middle of a clearing.

“I think I know how this thing works,” she whispered, forcing them to draw closer and cast shadows over the book. “The guide says the gallfungus converts a host plant and then has the plant attach to a rich source of nutrients. In other words, a living animal. A lot of tropical fungal species can manipulate their infected host into behaving differently, the better to suit the fungus itself. Usually, that means the host starts acting irrationally or dangerously.”

“But Fluttershy hasn’t been acting like that,” said Pinkie.

Twilight shook her head. “Not yet. I think we’d better get back to her, though. A fungus needs its host to give it the right conditions to live in. Do you know what this means?”

Spike gasped. “It’s gonna make Fluttershy go back into the forest?”

“Yes, at least if it wants the right conditions.”

Outside, the winds began to roar again. Branches whipped against each other. Crashing and distant explosions sounded like boulders being thrown around. As one, they looked at the front door.

“And then?” said Pinkie, who quickly bit a hoof.

Should I tell them? Zecora’s already beating herself up over it. Perhaps I should gloss over those particular details… I don’t want anyone to start panicking.

“Fortunately, there is a cure,” she said. “Zecora, look at this section.”

“I see.” Everyone moved aside to let the zebra scan the pages. For a moment, her eyes narrowed.

Does she know what I’m avoiding? Twilight took a deep breath. When Zecora glanced up, her black stripes seemed paler than usual.

“I think I can do that,” she said, reaching for more potions from the shelves and balancing the first bottle on her muzzle.
“A simple cure, but caveat:
I will require half a day.
Until then, keep the plant away
From altering poor Flutter’s form,
From Everfree, and from that storm.”

“And I’ll stay here and help!” said Pinkie, ignoring the groan from Zecora.

“Excellent!” said Twilight. Spike hopped onto her back. “We shouldn’t have too many problems. Parasite hosts take longer to control when they’re complex organisms. With any luck, Fluttershy will be cured before the gallfungus moves on to the next stage.”

Because there might not be a stage after that. She grimaced and willed the thought out of her head.

“All right!” said Spike. “Now there’s light at the end of the tunnel! Come on! Let’s go!”

Twilight held Zecora’s gaze for a moment. “Don’t worry. We’ve still got a chance.”

Zecora turned away. “I merely grasp at desperate straws,
But you have no need anymore
To worry over foalhood crimes.
You’ve more than made up over time.
You’ve grown into a better you,
Much better than the one I knew.”

Childish alarm shot through Twilight until something harder struck it aside. She nodded curtly.

“Huh?” said Spike. “What was that all about?”

“Later, Spike,” she whispered, and then bit her lip. The mud-buried skeleton, ribs protruding from a window on the top, lurked inside her imagination.

So it was a parasitoid after all, she thought. Not just a parasite.

A killer.

Please oh please, don’t let me be too late.

Before Twilight threw herself out into the darkness, Spike jolting against her spine, she just had time to see Pinkie hopping over to the cauldron. She could feel Zecora’s worried gaze following her out the door.