Two mares walked silently over the sun-dappled forest floor. The summer air wrapped them in heat and humidity drawing sweat and, with that, whining insects with fiendish little plans in their fiendish little minds. Heads turned, eyes searched, and ears pivoted, constantly, all looking for something, anything out of place. At the faint sound of a rustle, Rarity froze and saw Twilight do likewise, their heads turning and neither mare daring to breathe. Twilight gave a quick nod, and, silently, they turned toward the source. A nimbus gathered on each horn, Rarity's a mere flicker.
Twilight whispered, “Quickly and quietly. No matter who it was, he can't know what hit them.”
“I know. I don't have to like it, but I know.”
As the bushes moved aside, though, Rarity held up a hoof. “Twilight! No!”
“Rarity? What in Tartarus... Scootaloo?” Recognition struck like a blow, followed by horrified realization. Twilight lowered her horn again and got ready to cast. “Scootaloo, don't move." Her voice was deadly earnest. "I mean it -- don't come any closer.”
The filly froze, paling, then let out a brief cry of fear as she was bumped forward, falling to the ground. “Don't hurt me!”
Twilight stepped back, swallowing nervously. “It's OK! I won't hurt you, I promise. I just had to make sure.”
Rarity glared at the bushes Scootaloo had emerged from. “Come out this very minute, the both of you. I mean it!”
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom stepped out of the bushes, looking more scared than Rarity could remember. “We're sorry,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Sorry doesn't begin to cut it,” Twilight started. “Do you have any idea...”
“Please, Twilight,” Rarity interrupted gently. “I know how to deal with my own sister.” Twilight nodded and started scanning the surrounding woods, while Rarity searched for the right words. “Sorry doesn't begin to cut it!”
“Truly inspiring, Rarity.”
“Twilight, please! Sweetie Belle, do you have any idea what you've gotten yourselves into?”
“We're sorry,” Apple Bloom nevertheless said. “We couldn't let y'all run off and fight with only grapes and a plum.”
Twilight threw a confused look at Rarity, who rolled her eyes and answered, “I said that we'd handle this with 'grace and aplomb.'”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes as well, then cuffed the back of Apple Bloom's head. “Told you they wouldn't plan so stupid!”
“Yeah?” Apple Bloom asked derisively. “Then why are you here too?”
“Girls!” Rarity fought to keep her voice low. “This is very dangerous! When facing such a frightful foe as this, you really must leave things to trained professionals.”
“But you're not trained,” observed Scootaloo innocently.
“Well... I didn't mean 'trained' so much as 'experienced,' of course.”
“What're y'all fightin'?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Zombies.”
Scootaloo looked skeptical. “You're experienced at fighting... zombies?”
“Girls,” Twilight interjected, “Did any of you bring food? I didn't think so. Water? A little? That's good, but it's not enough.” She glared at the fillies. “It's a two-day trek back to Ponyville, and then two days back here. By then several more ponies will have...” She paused, and sighed. “Will have gotten hurt. Badly hurt.”
The crusaders exchanged guilt-laden glances, and it was Sweetie Belle who spoke up. “We can help!”
Twilight waited patiently, saying nothing.
“Show her,” Apple Bloom said sternly. Sweetie Belle looked ready to argue, but, realizing the gravity of the situation, nodded. She blushed, looked Rarity in the eye – and silently disappeared.
“It's my special talent,” she explained, her dejected voice coming from nowhere.
“That's... that's impressive,” Twilight grudgingly admitted. “I've never even heard of a unicorn in the last three hundred years who could pull that one off.”
“My sister's talent is invisibility?” Rarity asked incredulously.
“Sometimes it works like that in a family,” Twilight said with a bit of a smirk. “Her sister's talent, after all, is pretty much the opposite.”
Rarity froze for a second, then reluctantly decided not to be insulted. “But Sweetie, that really is a marvelous talent. Why didn't you say anything?”
The filly returned to visibility, and looked down. “Do you realize what this means for my cutie mark?”
“It's... Oh.” Despite the circumstances, Rarity had to fight hard not to laugh, giggle, or smile. Knowing she was doomed to fail at least that last challenge, she made sure her smile was a gentle one of commiseration, at least in appearance. “How long?”
“About seven months. Seven months with an invisible cutie mark. Can you imagine?”
“It could be worse,” Scootaloo groused, and Sweetie Belle had the grace to look embarrassed.
“What?” Twilight asked. “You can turn invisible too?”
Scootaloo merely looked truculent, and it was Apple Bloom who answered. “She turns things orange.”
Scootaloo looked around, and, after a bit of concentration, one tree branch above them instantly changed color. She then glared about, daring anypony to comment.
“Gamboge,” Sweetie Belle corrected. “Not orange.”
“Sweetie Belle, the precise shade is not a vital issue,” Rarity said primly, and then, “I cannot believe I just said that.” She shook her head. “In any case, a pegasus should not...”
“Should not be involved in something she's not ready for,” Twilight interrupted quickly, with a warning glance to Rarity.
Rarity shrugged. “So your cutie mark is...”
“The exact same color as the rest of my coat,” Scootaloo complained. “But I balance out my lame-o hidden cutie mark with a completely lame-o useless talent. Imagine how thrilled I am!” She looked from Twilight to Rarity, her eyes quickly going from annoyed to pleading. “Don't tell Dash? Please?”
“My lips are sealed,” Rarity promised, and then looked at Twilight. "Yours too, I presume?"
Twilight was busy sniffing at something. “Uh oh...”
Apple Bloom screamed as a pony in barding lurched out of the bushes behind them. A violet blast of energy knocked the thing back, for 'thing' it was, grey and mottled with death. Further back, a mare topped a hill, this one encrusted with earth and mold.
“They followed you!” Twilight, her horn glowing, looked back and saw yet two more of the undead clamber into visibility, their element of surprise lost. She concentrated and earth tore itself into dust between them and the zombies, obscuring their sight. “Come on -- the only direction is forward, for now.”
======================
They stopped running before the adults were completely exhausted, but Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had to lean against trees as they panted. Only Apple Bloom looked ready to keep going.
“Quick breather,” hissed Twilight. “Then we'll change direction, circle around...” She stopped, her eyes full of doubt.
“That'll add another day at least,” Rarity pointed out dispiritedly.
“What choice do we have?”
“Let us help,” Apple Bloom quietly urged.
“Out of the question! What's your talent, anyway?” Twilight asked, not at all kindly. “Exploding, invisible apples?”
“I... I still don't have mine,” she admitted. “That's why we're still crusadin’. But that ain't important. Well, not right now anyway. Look, y'all ain't trained for this any more'n we are. Sure, y'all got experience, but y'all didn't have any when goin' up against Nightmare Moon, and what could be worse'n her? All y'all had was the determination to do what's proper, and we got that in spades.
“And, 'less I miss my guess, y'all ain't got time to turn around neither, not without a lot more ponies gettin' themselves killed, and it'd be 'cause of us, right? Well, we done messed up proper. I admit it. But what's worse? Risking us, or the dozens who might die so's we can continue on with a life of guilt over it?”
Twilight frowned. “You sound way too much like your sister, and your timing couldn’t be worse.”
Rarity was more to the point. “Out of the question! This is no place for a filly!”
“Rarity...”
The fashionista looked at Twilight in disbelief. “Surely you can't be serious! Twilight, you may have yourself wings and a title to match, but I simply will not place Sweetie Belle's life at your discretion, princess or not!”
“Rarity, if we don't take care of this, and soon, it may go beyond anypony's ability to contain him.”
“Him?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“That doesn't concern you,” Rarity admonished sternly. “You are going home with me, and that's all there is to it.”
“He was the most powerful unicorn of his time,” Twilight explained. “And Rarity... That's the direction he'll be expecting us to go. Not to mention that if he accomplishes what he is trying to do...” She took a deep breath and plunged on. “Sweetie Belle won't be safe anywhere.”
Rarity looked from Twilight to her sister. “You're scaring her,” she quietly complained, and a simple glance at Sweetie Belle's tears showed this much was certainly true.
“I'm scaring me, but facts are facts.”
Rarity turned away from them both, shaking with fury -- and undoubtedly more.
“His name was Golden Glow,” Twilight began, “And his special talent was healing. He was fantastically gifted, and single-hoofedly brought about a golden age in health. Almost any injury, any disease, cured in hours, if he could reach them in time. And then, well, to make a long story sad, there was a time when he was too late, and he lost somepony very dear to him.
“He sought a grimoire of dark magics to try to bring her back, and Celestia refused him. He killed the guards and took it anyway, then vanished into the night. Celestia was heartbroken and torn – her prized pupil, a murderer. She ordered the royal guards to find him, and eventually they did. But when they returned to Canterlot...” Twilight shuddered.
“He'd killed them. He twisted his gift, his special talent for saving lives, into a skill for animating the dead. He killed them, and then worked the bodies like puppets. When you see one of them, it's his mind controlling them. It's him, seeing through their eyes. He used these to try to kill the princess.
“Everypony thought he’d died two hundred years ago, but when healing is your gift, well... Somehow he's also learned a spell for suppressing most magic, like unicorn spells, pegasus flight, or even earth pony strength. Anything but the special gift of each pony, I think. That's why he can defeat royal guard ponies, and that's why it's just Rarity and I doing this. My special talent is magic, so we were hoping I'd still be able to use it against him, but I have to admit it’s not working so well. I'm at half-strength, or less,” she said reluctantly. “And it’s getting worse as I get closer to him.”
“Why is Rarity here?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“That's for Rarity to tell you, or not,” Twilight answered evenly.
“And I resent the implication that I'm useless!” Rarity spat.
“Join the club!” Sweetie Belle responded, setting Rarity aback.
Twilight ignored the exchange. “Your gift is very powerful, Sweetie Belle. And every day, even with the evacuation of nearby towns, his army grows.”
“Could I talk to you in private, please, Princess?” Rarity asked, her voice icily sweet. A little removed from the fillies, she looked into Twilight's eyes. When she spoke, it wasn't with hysteria or even anger, merely deep concern. “First, I won't mention the unlikelihood of Scootaloo's talent for a pegasus. Don't ever think me stupid, Princess. There have been rumors for quite some time that her real father was a unicorn or an earth pony just due to her wings; I daresay even her father believes it.
“And I can't believe I am saying this, but if you promise me you will do everything in your power to keep my sister safe, I will allow this.”
“Of course! Rarity, you should know me better than to doubt that for even a second.”
“I hope I do,” Rarity answered evenly. “But you're here in part because you're a princess now, and you have duties to all of Equestria. I must admit, I find it difficult at the moment to determine just how much you would risk my baby sister for the greater good.” She saw Twilight's crushed look but refused to take pity, continuing with remorseless, icy determination even while she held back tears. “And if my sister gets hurt, I will never forgive you. Generosity be damned, that is one sacrifice I will never make.”
With that, Rarity turned her back on Twilight and walked back to the fillies. “You will do precisely what Twilight and I say. Do I make myself understood?”
The Crusaders all nodded, firmly.
“And Sweetie Belle, if Twilight says one thing and I say another? You had very well do what I say, if you know what's best for you.”
The filly nodded again, her expression uncertain.
“Very well,” Rarity said. “I believe we should head out. Twilight, if you would be so kind as to lead the way?”
An incredulous Scootaloo leaned over towards Apple Bloom. “Wow! Maybe you can get a cutie mark in persuasion.”
Sweetie Belle joined them and said, with more courage than she felt, "Cutie Mark Crusaders Zombie Fighters!"
======================
“His name is Argent Lance,” Rarity quietly told Sweetie Belle as they trekked along the edge of a meadow.
“I thought it was Golden Glow?” her sister whispered back.
“No, sweetheart, I mean the reason I'm along.” At her sister's look of confusion, she sighed quietly. “A month and a half ago, I was in Canterlot on business. He was, oh, 'dashing' is precisely the right word to describe him. Strong, smart... Even funny, once one got to know him. We've been exchanging letters since. But his was one of the guards units sent to investigate, before they knew that he was back,”
“Golden Glow?”
“The same. Though they call him the NecroPrancer now.” At Sweetie's look, Rarity's lips quirked. “For what it's worth, I think it's a stupid name, too.”
“We'll find him, Rarity,” Twilight assured her as she trotted closer.
It was empty reassurance and various snide remarks almost made it to Rarity's lips, but she simply nodded.
"I never thought of them having been somepony," Sweetie said sadly. "I mean, I knew it, but I didn't really get it."
Rarity nodded gravely. "They were all somepony, Sweetie Belle. It's too easy to forget that, and see only what they are now."
"So that's why you're out here? I'm not sure I've seen you so dirty before without complaining.”
“Thank you so much, Sweetie,” Rarity answered flatly, but quickly relented. "Yes. He was on his way to being my 'special somepony,' I think you say. I hope he still is."
“But Rarity...” Twilight cautioned.
“You really don't have to lecture me yet again, Princess,” Rarity heatedly whispered back. “If he's become one of those dreadful puppets then I will most certainly do what needs to be done. Although I do wonder if you would be so quick in the case of someone you knew.”
“I was,” Twilight answered after a moment. “That zombie in the barding that tried to get Apple Bloom? His name was Broadsword. My brother was in the royal guard, remember? I met a lot of soldiers. Broadsword was one of those few who always had the time for a curious little pest of a filly and all her questions.”
They trotted on for a time in silence, before Rarity said, “Golden Glow has a lot to answer for, doesn't he?”
Twilight knew that was as close to an apology as she was likely to get. “Yes,” she answered, a little surprised at the genuine note of hatred in her own voice. “He most certainly does.”
======================
"What're you doing?" Scootaloo asked.
"It's too dangerous to keep going in the dark," Twilight answered as she looked around the cave. "I, I mean we, are checking this place out for spending the night in."
"Oh." Scootaloo looked around. "Yep. It's a cave. What else is there to know?"
"That it doesn't look like it's home to any large animal, and there's a side wall I can blast through if we become trapped in here, without bringing down the ceiling."
"Well, I meant besides those, of course," Scootaloo answered smoothly. “You should have brought Rainbow Dash, by the way.”
Twilight only wondered why it had taken Dash’s number one fan this long to bring it up. “Oh?” she asked, all innocence. “Why is that?”
“Well, this evil spell blocker thing only affects magic, right?”
“It affects common pony magic, like I said, but not cutie mark skills.”
“Right!” Scootaloo almost shouted, earning a quick glare from Twilight. “Right,” she said more quietly. “And Rainbow Dash is the fastest thing on four legs, and super-duper strong and tough!”
Twilight had doubts about some of that, but diplomatically kept them to herself. “Tough, huh?”
Scootaloo nodded fervently. “Yeah, she explained it to me. You know how when you break a bone, it heals up stronger?”
“Actually that’s just a popular misc...”
“Well, Dash told me she’s broken almost all of them!”
======================
Five very bedraggled ponies made it to the edge of a clearing around the old unicorn castle the next day. The castle grounds were filled with zombies, all standing motionless, staring.
"The stench alone could be deemed a potent weapon," Rarity noted softly.
“OK,” Twilight said quietly. “Sweetie Belle, I'll have to ask you to do your thing. Move very slowly, very quietly, don’t get near any of them, and stay in sight of us at all times. Just observe. If anything happens, I think I have enough power to make a distraction.”
“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity put in, “You don't have to do this.” She didn't quite plead with her sister, but only just.
Wordlessly, the filly disappeared and the bushes rustled, briefly. Rarity's heart leapt to her throat and it was all she could do not to whimper. She felt Twilight's hoof on her shoulder, and very nearly shook it off in anger
“She’ll be all right, Rarity.”
“She had better be.”
Several minutes or many forevers later, Sweetie appeared behind them. “Several dozen zombies between us and the outer castle wall. There's a gateway to the left, and no door in it, just more of them.”
“Maybe we need a distraction,” Twilight thought aloud.
“Too dangerous,” Rarity hissed. “We are not sending Sweetie Belle in alone among zombies only to alert them.”
“I meant that I might be able to do something,” Twilight countered.
“Twilight... I apologize.”
“I understand you're on edge right now, Rarity,” Twilight smiled. “No apologies needed.”
Rarity nodded, smiling back in relief. “Perhaps I could use my own experience to disguise us as zombies?”
Twilight shook her head. “He'd know. It’d be like somepony else’s hoof pretending to be yours.”
“Perhaps in this field I am useless after...” She paused, then smiled. “Idea!” She looked at Twilight and her smile vanished. “You're not going to like this, though.”
“If it helps at all, I love it.”
Rarity hesitated. “You're sure they're mindless, right?”
“They have just enough brains to stay upright. Any will they have is completely the NecroPrancer's.” At Rarity and her sister's look, she shrugged, “I think that name sounded a lot more impressive two hundred years ago. Rarity, what's your idea?”
Rarity explained and Twilight, after a time, nodded. “You're right, that’s kind of nasty. But it also sounds very effective. I’m glad you’re on our side, Rarity. Scootaloo, this depends on you. Are you up to it?” The filly nodded uncertainly, but she did nod.
Scootaloo concentrated, looking around the clearing. On the right side of the castle, zombies suddenly stiffened and wandered around blindly, even stumbling into each other. The same pattern repeated in front of the mares, and then to the left.
“Come on!” Twilight ordered as they quietly walked to the curtain wall. As she ran past a zombie it turned toward her, but didn't move. She stared at its face and its unseeing, now orange-colored eyeballs, and shuddered despite herself. Good work, Scootaloo! But he must know something's happening, with so many of his guards going blind. We can't bet our lives on him being stupid.
They kept close to the curtain wall, out of sight of the bastions where guards higher placed, guards Scootaloo might have missed, could see them. Twilight peeked around the side of the gateway. Zombies spotted her, and started to move. He was keeping an eye out here. “Scootaloo, now,” she hissed, and the filly poked her head around and, like that, the new zombies joined the old in the ranks of the blind. But now he knows where we are, at least in general.
They sped into the castle, leaving orange-eyed zombies tossed aside by Twilight's telekinesis, but, with the NecroPrancer's magic dampening, the effort was like lifting ursa minors left and right. Twilight knew her ragged breathing was giving their location away to anything with ears, but he had to know which corridor they were using by now, anyway. Scootaloo was glancing about, blinding any zombies they could see, but at least once an arrow whistled past and clattered against a wall, so Twilight gritted her teeth and surrounded them with a bubble of force.
By the they got to the central keep, Twilight was almost blinded herself, with sheer pain. She felt Rarity's barrel press against hers, guiding her to the door. A zombie in barding was waiting just inside, and Twilight tried to send a bolt toward it but collapsed instead, hooves pressed to her head and a scream trying to escape from her lips. She heard, rather than saw, Apple Bloom spin and buck the undead pony away. Rarity left her side with a harshly drawn breath, and there was a commotion filled with horrible, wet, crunching sounds.
By the time Twilight could open her eyes, she saw Rarity leaning against a wall, still heaving but not adding anything to the thin pool of vomit at her bloodied hooves. “It was...” Rarity shuddered, and looked away, trembling, her face even paler than usual.
Twilight saw what remained of the zombie, and recognized him from the picture Celestia had sent. “Rarity, I'm so sorry.” The hope of finding Rarity's coltfriend alive had always been a slender one, but she'd thought they could at least avoid running into him personally. To have to end him, to have to brutally put down something with the face of one you, if not quite loved, at least wanted to love, was something Twilight was happier not imagining.
Rarity nodded jerkily. “He'll pay for this. He can't suffer enough, not after what he's done.” She looked at Twilight, daring her to object. She was obviously channeling all her energy into hatred, if only to hold off despair for a little while longer.
Twilight looked and saw that they’d barred the door to the keep while she was down. “OK. I think he won't have as many guards inside the keep as out. Apple Bloom, are you OK?” Then she jumped as something began hammering the door from outside. She knew it would hold for a good while, but the noise was more than a little unnerving.
“I want to go home,” Apple Bloom admitted, shivering uncontrollably. “I really wish I could just go home.” She blinked a couple times, then looked back at her flank to see an apple imposed on a blossom. She looked back at the others with what must have been a poor attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “An apple. Ya know, lookin' back, I might've expected that.”
“Are you sure he's even in here?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I'm sure,” Twilight answered. “Its the most protected part of the castle, and he knows it. Also... I can feel him.” It was a shadow, an itch, a basic wrongness pressing upon her basic sense of being. She hated him as much as Rarity did, and she knew it was partly because he was, in a way, a twisted version of herself, and a reminder of how just wrong a path she could have gone. Moreover, she could never have imagined bringing fillies into something so dangerous before becoming a princess and tasked with duty toward Equestria as a whole. She didn't know if she still had a friend in Rarity, and, for that matter, wasn't sure she deserved to. All thanks to him.
“Upstairs. I'll lead, with Scootaloo behind... Apple Bloom, stay in the middle, all right?” The earth filly was understandably shaken, and Twilight wanted her where others could keep an eye on her.
“I should go first,” Sweetie Belle spoke up, her voice shaking. “I can be invisible.”
“But not invulnerable,” Twilight objected. “We don't know what he's capable of, and I can raise a shield long enough to pull back. I just had to rest for a bit.”
Sweetie Belle looked doubtful, but nodded dutiful assent, and Twilight didn't miss Rarity's quick look of gratitude.
They crept up the stairs to the top of the tower, silently, not running into anything else. When a voice suddenly broke the silence, Twilight flinched so hard she almost lost her footing.
“Go away!” The voice wasn't commanding, ominous, or even loud. It was dry and croaking, but most terribly it was ordinary. This was a voice that could have easily have wished you a nice day, inquired about tomorrow's weather, or asked for a daisy sandwich. This voice could have belonged to anypony.
Twilight silently checked with the others, and then, with an effort of will, blew the heavy door off its hinges and sent it hurtling into the room before them. She strode into the room, desperately trying not to stumble as the telekinetic effort drove daggers into her skull. “On behalf of the crown, I order you to surrender and cease...” She trailed off as she saw the figure standing before them: stooped, rail-thin, and most definitely dead.
That's how he's lasted this long. Sweet Celestia – he raised himself.
“You're ruining everything,” he wailed, and raised a golden shield.
“No,” Twilight said. “Golden Glow, you've killed hundreds...”
“I made them better!” he screamed. “I can make everypony better! Nopony need die for good, ever. You should have all left me alone. Left us alone. I would have shown everypony that she's really back!”
“Daddy?” A new voice drew their attention as a pallid, dessicated filly walked in from a side room, a pink bow in the few strands of mane she had left. “Daddy, they're scaring me. Make the bad ponies go away!”
Twilight stepped back, suddenly uncertain. Could it be? But Rarity tapped her on the shoulder, and directed her attention back to the NecroPrancer. As Twilight heard his daughter speak, she could see his own lips move unconsciously, echoing what “she” was about to say.
“Make them go away, Daddy. You promised to keep me safe. You can do it; you're a good daddy!”
Rarity whispered, “I was wrong before, Twilight. That really is the worst possible thing.” Twilight swallowed, and nodded, pitying the delusional stallion they'd all feared.
The daughter walked over to the stallion, and nuzzled gently. "Don't you love me, Daddy?" His lips kept moving as she croaked reassurances to him, and then him to her, his voice thick with emotion
“Don't be afraid – Daddy will take care of them, sweetie. Daddy will take care of you. Daddy will always take care of you.” He turned toward the mares and levitated a book from a nearby bench, a book Twilight recognized it as the grimoire he'd stolen so long ago. “I won't let you hurt her!”
“She's.. I'm sorry, she's dead,” Twilight said. “No matter how much you want her to be alive, she isn't. Let her rest. Let us help you, please!”
“That's what they all said, but they agree with me, now.” His voice was becoming more and more eager. “You'll see. I have spells in here that can kill you, but don't be afraid! I'll help you. Afterward. You'll see.”
Twilight's spells splashed over his shield as he opened the book, scanning pages feverishly. The shield rippled like water, but didn’t shatter. “I'm too weak,” she groaned, falling to her knees as her energy ebbed, every breath a desperate labor. “Scootaloo, you have to stop him.”
“I can't! He's, well...” Scootaloo cried in dismay. “I can't blind a real pony. Don't make me, Twilight. Please.”
Twilight nodded glumly; she'd pushed the filly too far. Twilight got raggedly to her hooves and hobbled toward Golden Glow's warding spell, not really having any idea what she'd try when she got there, but unable not to try.
“No! No! No!” Golden Glow, or what was left of him, wailed and flung the book at them. Every page was a featureless orange.
“Good work, Scootaloo,” Rarity breathed.
Golden Glow dropped his shield with a sound between a scream of rage and a sob of misery, then he charged at Twilight, howling. She fired off one more spell before she fell into a world of brilliant white agony, and, mercifully, fainted.
======================
Twilight awoke to the feeling of a cold, wet rag pressed against her forehead. “Well,” she said weakly, “It looks like I lived.” A frantic worry sent her sitting upright. “I am alive, right?”
“Of course you are,” Rarity assured her as she pushed Twilight back down in the bed. “Though for a while we weren't sure you would be. Darling, you do tend to push yourself a little too hard at times. How do you feel?”
“Like my head exploded. Twice. Golden Glow?”
“You were... rather forceful with him,” Rarity said. “And the wall behind him.” She anticipated Twilight's next question. “I checked, while the fillies brought you to this gatehouse. There wasn't enough of him left to threaten anypony ever again.” She sighed, sitting back on her haunches. “It's funny, really. I didn't hate him, not at the end. Losing one's child, and then to come so close to having her back... I guess even he used to be somepony.”
Twilight nodded sadly. “I'm glad he's, well, gone, but I do feel sorry for him. At the very end, I think he wanted to die -- really die -- rather than face that he'd lost her.”
“I'm afraid I wouldn't go quite far enough for pity. Mostly I simply feel glad that the problem has been resolved.”
“I guess I really can't blame you.” She looked up at her friend. “How do you feel?”
“I'll be all right, Twilight. Eventually. I liked him -- I liked him a lot -- but I had only known him for a month and a half, and that mostly by post. Still... I wish you could have met Argent Lance. I mean, really met him.” She sighed wistfully. “He deserved much better. I wish I could have been there for him.”
“Maybe you still can be, in a way,” Twilight said as she got shakily to her hooves. “I know from prior experience that the guard can be a little, well, impersonal when it has to deal with this many unexpected deaths, and I can't tell you how many nights I worried about my own family getting a form letter about my brother. Maybe Argent Lance's family can use a more personal touch?”
Rarity blinked away a few tears. “I'll be happy to be there for them, Twilight, of course.”
“How's everypony else?”
"Those fillies have gotten themselves into trouble before, Twilight, but this time they saw things no pony so young ever should."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not really your fault."
“I'm not so sure, Rarity.” She shook her head, slowly. “I did risk the fillies for the greater good, no matter how careful I was, and I don't know if 'prize pupil Twilight' would have done what 'Princess Twilight' did.” She looked back to the alabaster pony. "I felt I had to compromise between 'friend' and 'princess,' and if I have to choose..."
Rarity raised a hoof to motion her into silence. “You yourself said there might be no safety for them, otherwise, and as much as I hate to say it, you were right. Your heart was in the right place throughout. Besides, Princess or not, I can't quite see you holing up and waiting for somepony else to save the day, not with so many lives at stake. And if I can't really blame you, I suppose I have only one alternative.” The fashionista demonstrated that, between friends, a quick hug sufficed in the place of a long string of mutual apologies, and tactfully ignored any tears on Twilight's part.
“My mom and dad are here, and AJ and Big Mac,” Rarity continued. “They chased after the fillies, but, thank Celestia, nopony got hurt. I think Big Mac's and Applejacks hooves are terribly chipped, admittedly, and, evil dampening spells or not, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if zombie parts were decorating the trees from here to Ponyville."
"That's what happens when ya go up 'gainst the Elements of Stubborn and Mad," a familiar voice drawled.
"AJ! Big Mac!" Twilight began to look like she wanted to hide. "Um, about Apple Bloom..."
"Don't fret none -- Rarity explained the whole thing," Applejack explained. "I can't say's I'm exactly thrilled, but I reckon y'all did the best ya could under the circumstances. She's grounded till she's three hundred, by the way."
"Eeyup."
"Well, since she's not crusading any more..."
"Oh, they are," Rarity said. "They've decided they want different cutie marks."
"All except Apple Bloom," Applejack noted proudly. "Unless she can really get that 'invisible, exploding apples' talent somepony mentioned." Twilight put on what she hoped was her best poker face, but Applejack gave her a knowing wink. "Even if she does, though, I ain't changin' her name to 'Apple Boom.'"
"Eenope."
"They do know cutie marks don't work like that, don't they?"
"Twilight," Rarity said gently, "I think they don't care. I believe Scootaloo is even afraid of her own talent, now."
The princess sighed. "There's always a price, isn't there?"
“Indeed. But right now they're getting ready for the ceremony for the savior of all Equestria,” Rarity announced happily.
“Oh, great. I thought I'd be used to this by now.”
“Actually, Twilight,” Rarity said while almost entirely failing to hide a grin, “This time they mean Scootaloo.”
Author's Note
Done for the Authors Helping Authors group's 500 member contest fic.
