Everything Dies, Baby; That's a Fact

Applejack sat at the station, waiting next to her bags for the train to the Crystal Empire. She wore a red, flannel jacket that was frayed at its cuffs and collar from years of wear in the fields. From one its inner pockets she took a flask, and she sipped from it several times, swishing the whiskey in her mouth and letting it burn its way down into her belly. If not for that familiar sensation, she might have thought she was dreaming.

“Nah,” she said, putting the flask away. “This ain't no dream. If it was, there'd be a goddamn penguin standing on my suitcase trying to sell me peanuts, or some shit. Either that, or there'd be Nightmare Moon trying to kill my ass, again. Damn, those were fine days.”

“Peanuts for sale!”

Applejack looked up, slightly confused, and turned to her left. There was a penguin as big as she was standing on her suitcase with a tray of peanuts.

“Pinkie, get outta that goddamn costume, and quit listening in on other ponies when they're thinking out loud. Ain't you got no respect for nopony's privacy!?”

Pinkie took off the head of the penguin costume. “Well, you don't have to think out loud,” she said, mildly perturbed.

“What the hell are you even doing here?” asked Applejack.

Pinkie gestured to a pair of pink suitcases behind her, both emblazoned with her cutie mark. By the time Applejack looked at them, and then back at Pinkie Pie, the penguin costume had completely vanished. The other earth mare was clad instead in a yellow sweater vest.

“Same as you, from what I can see,” said Pinkie Pie. “I thought you didn't want to see Twilight.”

“I don't,” said Applejack, "but I reckon I gotta go get some things said. Otherwise, I don't know if I'll ever get a good night's sleep, again.”

“Good enough for me,” said Pinkie Pie. “I just want hugs.”

“You always want hugs, Pinkie. You're the neediest pony I ever have met, you know that?”

Pinkie Pie grabbed Applejack, and wrapped her up tight in her forelegs. “Whatever you say, Grumpyjack.”

“Cut that shit out,” said Applejack, laughing a little as she pushed Pinkie off herself.

Then she grunted slightly, and her shoulders hunched suddenly forward.

“What's wrong?” asked Pinkie. “I didn't hug you that hard, did I?”

“Just my back,” said Applejack, and she straightened up, again.

“I'm glad to see I won't have to make the train ride alone,” came Fluttershy's small voice.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie hopped over to give the pegasus a hug, then pirouetted back to sit between her and Applejack.

“What has gotten into you, Pinkie Pie?” asked Applejack. “You ain't been this hyper in years. You back on those pills, again?”

“Which pills?” asked Pinkie. “There were so many.”

“Never mind,” said Applejack, then she turned to Fluttershy. “I'm surprised old what's-his-nuts even let you out of the house.

“He didn't,” said Fluttershy.

Applejack's “Say what?” and Pinkie's “Huh?” overlapped one another.

“He doesn't know I'm here.”

“How'd you pull that one off?,” asked Applejack.

“I used an excuse I didn't think he would...” Fluttershy began, but her words trailed off.

"Call bullshit on?" asked Applejack.

"Yeah," said Fluttershy, and she even gave a single, near-inaudible chuckle, though even this seemed somehow melancholy.

“Wait a minute,” said Pinkie Pie. “Your nose.”

Fluttershy made no effort to hide the partially solidified, reddish crust on her snout. She shivered slightly, and swallowed.

“I can't take it, anymore,” she said. “I'm not coming back.”

“You just gonna stay in the Crystal Empire?” asked Applejack. “Just gonna let him have your place?”

“I can't come back here,” said Fluttershy. “He'll probably kill me.”

“Ain't gotta be that way,” said Applejack. “Me and Big Mac can rough him up; run him out of town.”

“He might come back,” said Fluttershy, shuddering. “When you weren't around, he might come back.”

“Tell the police,” said Pinkie Pie. “Hell, tell Princess Celestia. She didn't seem too happy about what she saw, this morning.”

“Fuck her,” said Applejack, and she fished once more for her flask. “That bitch ain't gonna do shit for nopony that can't do something for her, some way.”

“You know,” said Pinkie Pie, “I think you're a little hard on her, sometimes.”

“You talking about the same Princess I am?” asked Applejack. “I know Equestria was pretty much fucked, but still, I don't think it was Twilight's plan to come flying out of that mirror leaking like a sieve and without that goddamn crown.”

She took a drink from her flask.

“I guess I was wrong about you.” The orange earth mare quoted the words they all remembered so well with a hard, ugly sneer.

“Twilight's passing out, -- coulda died, for fuck's sake -- and that's the last thing she ever woulda heard.” She stared into the mouth of the flask.

“Worst part about it is: she meant it... You could hear how she meant it; see it in her face, even. And she wants to just take that back? What a self-righteous cunt.”

“She was just disappointed,” said Fluttershy.

“Don't care,” said Applejack. “You said it this morning; She didn't have to say a thing like that.”

“So you've never said anything you regret?” asked the pegasus.

Applejack looked up at Fluttershy. The image of her friend's yellow face stained red around the nostrils brought back to her mind the image of Applebloom with a bloody nose. The memory was so vivid that she could still taste the blood from her own lacerated lip every time she recalled it. Why couldn't she have just let it go at a couple of stray, drunken kicks? No; she had to tell her sister how she really felt, didn't she?

“So, nothing then?” asked Pinkie Pie after waiting a few seconds. “You've never said even one thing you really, truly meant, and still wish you could take back?”

Applejack took one more sip from her flask, then screwed shut its cap.

“One or two things, I reckon.”

***

Princess Luna sat on her balcony, staring down at Ponyville's tiny sprawl in the valley below. Her sister stood nearby, watching her intently.

The sapphire-colored alicorn was in a mild trance that she often entered into when searching through the minds of her dreaming subjects. To most ponies, it would have seemed a bizarre experience. To her, it had become almost mundane. Dreams, – normal dreams of the variety not magically influenced – were so disjointed that she had long ago stopped searching for any symbolism or meaning in most of them. Occasionally, she did discover some profound truth about some pony or other by wandering in a sleeping mind, but usually, all she encountered was a cobbled-together mess of the worries and thoughts that a pony had experienced during the previous day.

As it was, it was mostly dreams of this variety that she found herself wandering through in search of the dreams of one, particular pony. It turned out that the sort of nightmares Shimmershine was having were so different than what she had come to expect, however, that she almost missed him completely. In fact, it was not him at all that first drew her attention.

It was his mother, Lyra.

“Goodness,” mumbled Luna's physical mouth, as her mental, telepathically-projected self stumbled into Lyra's subconscious. “What is going on in this mare's mind?”

There were images of strange, alien worlds; too many to fully comprehend, and cycling too quickly one to another for her to make out many details. The brief glimpses she caught showed worlds with many colors of sky, worlds of water, and even great gas giant planets where things like gigantic, bloated fish swam through the very atmosphere. There were also occasional images of Equestria, and of worlds that seemed more familiar.

Lyra Heartstrings was present in all of them in some form or another, and simultaneously aware of herself as who she was in all of those forms.

“This cannot be good for this poor pony's mind,” said Luna, and with that, she cast a spell to calm Lyra's wild, horrible dreams.

It did not work.

Well, that's new, thought Luna. I'll come back to you. I think I may know what's responsible for this.

Where was he? He had to be close. There. She had found him.

She desperately hoped that what she would see would be the typical, inane nightmares of a young colt with too big an imagination. She saw them all the time, and they usually were not difficult to remedy. Only in cases where some sort of genuinely severe psychological trauma was the cause had she ever had the least difficulty in pacifying a foal's subconscious.

This was incalculably worse than that.

“Egad."

She wanted to erupt in a flurry of curses far fouler, but vulgarity failed her. What she was experiencing was too profound to permit it. It was a thing so horrible that it was actually majestic, in its own way.

The child had only the barest sense of himself, but at the same time he had a sense of everything in existence. It was the understanding of reality that had defined the existence of the being Luna's father had named Cenasolus, the "Sun Eater,” but in a permutation that allowed a finite being like a pony to experience it.

Could it be that Shimmershine was remembering what he used to be?

Impossible, thought Luna, still overwhelmed with the bizarre sense of unity and disconnection that were somehow wed in the colt's psyche. Cenasolus chose to become this little pony. With all of the power that being had, it would have been able to obliterate all possibility of reversion to its former state.

“Let all be one if it will be one, but I will be only a part of it,” Cenasolus had said.

Something else is at the heart of this, thought Luna.

Heart? she thought. Then, Oh, yes! Then, Oh, no.

She concentrated, looking for something regular; a slow, steady throb -- a heartbeat.

“There it is,” she said, mumbling aloud in her physical body. “The aethervox; the heart of a murdered god.”

She could see nothing; no image in Shimmershine's mind was visual. It was like the dreams of a pony born blind.

She could feel something, though, and she could hear it; a number of voices beyond her comprehension, declaring as one their hatred and coming vengeance.

“We come for you,” they said. “The time draws nigh.”

“Please! Tell me who you are!” A child's voice, this time; Shimmershine's.

He was speaking to these beings through the aethervox – his own, beating heart.

“You have not known us, though you destroyed us, but know us you shall before you are destroyed.”

“I've never hurt anypony. Please, just leave me alone!” There was agony and terror in the foal's voice, now, and Luna tried to reach out to offer him comfort.

She could not. In the strange, Stygian void of Shimmershine's nightmare, it was impossible for her to exert any direct influence. She had no more sense of where she was in that abyssal rift of consciousness than she would have were she cast adrift in the farthest reaches of outer space.

All she could do was listen.

“What you have taken from us we shall take also from you. Cast aside your hope, and beg not our mercy. There is no penance adequate to your transgression, and our clemency would be an atrocity against all that has been or ever shall be.”

“I DON'T UNDERSTAND!” shouted the foal, seemingly from everywhere.

“You do not need to.”

So many voices, thought Luna. How can there be so many?

What was the number? There was no number.

“There is no number; many more than many,” she heard herself whisper bodily, in recollection of the strange things Cenasolus had said to them through the aethervox.

Suddenly, she understood.

It had consumed for eternity, that cosmic power that had no name for itself. For farther back than forever, it had taken beings into itself, and in some sense perhaps just as far into the future, as well.

Now, without that singular, seemingly infinite consciousness to unite them, those long-dead gods were individuating themselves, finding once more their own unique identities and awarenesses, and the aethervox, a magical conduit of immense power, was giving them precisely the means by which to assert themselves into reality. Their voices were innumerable, but their desires were, to a one, precisely the same: They wished to exist; for their worlds and for themselves to be real, once more.

Most of all, however, they wanted revenge.

“We will take your world,” they said, “as you have taken ours. You have learned to love and to be loved. In so doing, you have also learned to suffer, and suffer you shall, for longer than there are stars to be seen in the sky.”

Luna started from her trance, shaking her head, and blinking rapidly. She was aware of her sister's presence, but did not acknowledge her until she spoke.

“Fate of the world?” asked Celestia.

Luna nodded slightly, staring down at Ponyville, far below in the shadow of the mountain.

“Fate of the world,” she whispered.

***

“I had given up hope that I would ever see you, again,” said Rarity, staring into a machiato she had bought, but not yet touched. She and Twilight were sitting at a table in front of the coffee shop the clerk had earlier indicated. Twilight had already guzzled an enormous cup of dark roast, and had started on another. She had said little, but Rarity was at least glad that she had deigned to accompany her to the little cafe, rather than just fly away, as she had at first seemed wont to do.

“Where did you go?” asked the unicorn.

“Hmm?” came Twilight's response, as she quickly sat her cup on the table. Her eyes were bright and wide, owing to a tremendous dose of caffeine dumped into a body devoid of its presence for most of a decade.

“Oh,” she said. “I was in an old monastery in the Unicorn Range. It was a place where ponies used to go to find enlightenment.”

“I see,” said Rarity, forlornly. “Did you find it?”

“Not really,” said Twilight, quietly.

“Didn't you ever want to come home?” asked Rarity, wiping her eyes. Her makeup had indeed run, and though she had corrected it to the best of her ability in the coffee shop's restroom, it was still smudged, and faint lines still traced down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes.

“Every day,” said Twilight, and then she shrugged. "For awhile, anyway."

“Well, why didn't you?” asked Rarity, with an air of genuine hurt.

Twilight's eyes blinked several times, quickly. “I really need something to take the edge off all the caffeine,” she said, and her eyes strayed to the bottle of wine in the paper bag on the table.

“Then open it,” said Rarity. “It's not as if anypony's going to say anything about it.” She turned around to the small crowd of gawkers that had accumulated in the coffee shop's other patio chairs since the two of them had sat down. “Are you!?” she said, loudly.

“Rarity, relax,” said Twilight, popping the bottle's cork telekinetically. She guzzled the remaining coffee from her cup, and poured wine to replace it.

“Well, this is really none of their business,” said the unicorn, haughtily.

“We're in public,” said Twilight. “It's the business of anypony who's within earshot, as long as they don't harass us.”

“You and I clearly have different ideas about what constitutes harassment,” said Rarity, giving a nearby mare a mean stare.

“I thought you loved attention.” said Twilight.

“This is different,” said Rarity.

“Not to them,” said Twilight, nodding towards the curious onlookers. Somepony somewhere in the crowd snapped a picture, and the flash startled them both briefly.

“Fine,” said Rarity, “But you still haven't answered my question.”

Twilight drank down the cup of wine like it was water, then looked at Rarity.

“What?”

“Why didn't you come home? We all spent years wondering when you would show up in Ponyville again, and things could go back to something like the way they were before. Eventually, we all realized it wasn't going to happen, of course, and we all dealt with it in our own way. Still, though, I always wondered... Were you really that ashamed?”

“Yes,” said Twilight, quietly.

“Why?” asked Rarity, also lowering her voice. “None of us ever said anything to you. We just wanted you to feel better. That was all.”

“That was what made it so unbearable,” replied the alicorn, sipping at her wine. “Just once, I wanted one of you to really let me have it. I wanted you to hit me, or give me the silent treatment, or tell me that you knew I could have done better.”

“So you hid yourself away, and did those things for yourself?” Rarity raised an eyebrow.

Twilight did not respond. She only poured herself more wine, and took a sip.

“I see,” said Rarity. “Well, if you want criticism, here it is: That. Was. Stupid.”

“I know that,” said Twilight, her ears drooping.

“Please don't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, a thousand times ever do that, again,” said Rarity, her eyes trying their best to tear up, again.

“Don't even know where I'd go,” said Twilight with a sigh, and she took another drink.

“I missed this stuff so much – and these.” She took out a cigarette, her fifth since they'd sat down, and lifted the white Bic lighter the clerk had given her up to its tip. Her face glowed slightly in its soft, warm light, and she inhaled.

“You're going to feel like somepony kicked you in the chest, tomorrow,” said Rarity.

“I know,” said Twilight, smiling.

“At least there aren't too many ponies around to see this,” said Rarity.

“Rarity, there you are!”

It was Sweetie Belle, accompanied by Applebloom, Scootaloo, and an army of paparazzi.

“Sssshit!” hissed Rarity.

“Where were you?” asked Sweetie Belle, walking over to the table. “I completely fucked the last number, and I don't even know if they're gonna let me do the gig tomorrow, and...”

“You missed one step, and fumbled one line” said Scootaloo, cutting her off. “Nopony even noticed. As for you, Rarity, don't even talk to...” Scootaloo's eyes turned towards the mare with whom Rarity was sitting, and her sentence trailed off.

“Hey,” said Twilight, the substances pervading her body actually edging her voice towards cheerfulness. “It's the CMC!”

“Hoe-lee fucknuggets,” said Applebloom, her voice betraying nothing so much as disbelief. “It's Twilight Fucking Sparkle.”

“What the hell!?” said a random stallion's voice from somewhere in the crowd that had followed Sweetie Belle. “She's right!”

In almost perfect unison, every camera in the crowd that had followed Sweetie Belle from the amphitheater shifted from her to the table where the alicorn sat across from her old friend. The mob shifted to encircle them, and flashes began to erupt from all sides without mercy.

“Why, oh why, did my makeup have to run?” asked Rarity, doing her best to hide her face with her hooves.

The three young mares wedged their way through the crowd, led by Applebloom's earth pony might, and ran up the table.

“Sorry,” said Scootaloo, looking terribly embarrassed.

“Don't worry,” said Twilight. “I've still got this little trick, remember?”

There was a purple burst of light that washed out all the camera flashes, and the five mares that had been at the tiny table were gone, leaving only a bottle of wine and a burning cigarette in an ashtray.

There was a chorus of gasps, and murmurs of “Where'd they go,” and the like. Ponies looked around in stunned confusion, trying to decipher what had just happened.

Suddenly, there came another flash, and there again stood Twilight Sparkle. She levitated her bottle of wine off the table, and grabbed her burning cigarette between two of her right wing's primary feathers. Then, she gave a monotone “Whoops,” and disappeared, once more.

***

The sound of the train's brakes screeching shocked Pinkie Pie out of what had been a sound sleep.

“Are we there yet?” she asked, sleepily.

Applejack, who was sipping at her whiskey, turned a slightly reddened eye towards the other earth pony, and shook her head.

“Stopover at the passenger dock below Cloudsdale is all,” she said. “It's about midnight; go on back to sleep, Pink.”

“Why are you still awake?” she asked in reply, yawning.

Applejack shrugged. “Not thinking I'll get much sleep on this ride. Too much on my mind.”

“Like what?” asked Pinkie.

“Time,” said Applejack. “How it fucks with you, you know?”

“Oh,” said Pinkie, gently.

Applejack took another swig from her flask. She pulled it away from her lips, and sighed.

“Lemme ask you something, Pinkie.”

“Shoot.”

“How the hell is it you're the only one of us that's still... you know... the same.”

“Hmm?” Pinkie looked bewildered.

“Rarity's back and forth between Ponyville and Canterlot, strung out all the goddamn time. Fluttershy's....” Applejack nodded at Fluttershy, who was laying on an adjacent seat in a fitful, twitching slumber. “Rainbow Dash,” continued the orange mare. “Hell, we ain't seen her in six years or better. And me?” She scowled at the flask, then took another sip from it. “Shit, I don't even know, anymore.”

She took a deep breath, and turned her eyes away from Pinkie Pie's face.

“So, why not you? You work the same shitty job you've had since you were eighteen. You run yourself ragged taking care of three younguns. You got three divorces under your belt, and ain't none of them fellas showed hide nor hair trying to be daddy to their own flesh and blood since they took off. You're a goddamn failure, Pinkamena Diane Pie, but you just keep smiling.”

The orange mare shook her head, unsteadily.

“How?” she asked, not looking at Pinkie.

Pinkie Pie pursed her lips, and her eyes narrowed and widened in thought.

“You know, I can't say. I guess I just never think about it. I think if I ever did, it would drive me crazy.”

“That'd be a helluva sight to see, sure enough,” said Applejack; “you crazier than you already are.”

“Haha! I know.”

The pair said nothing for awhile, then Pinkie looked at her friend.

“You know, I think you think too much,” she said.

“Drink too much, maybe,” said Applejack, “but think? Me?”

“Yeah,” said Pinkie Pie. You're always inside your head. Not like Twilight used to be, though. She was always working out a whole lot of different things. You're always working out... you.”

“Never thought of it that way,” said Applejack.

She eased herself back against the seat, trying to find a position that would alleviate the dull throb in her lower spine.

“Yeah, you have,” said Pinkie Pie. “That's the problem.” She fell silent for awhile, then spoke again.

“What are you gonna say when you see her?” she asked.

“Dunno,” said Applejack. “Keep thinking about it, but I can't come up with nothing. Got a lot of weird, mixed up feelings. We were all supposed to be some kinda legend or something, but then one thing happens, and it's all just... over. I don't need nopony's attention, so I guess I coulda stood that just fine, if she'da just stayed put. Like it is, though, I just don't know.”

“Take an open seat,” came the voice of the conductor We'll be leaving the station soon.”

The sound drew the two earth mares' eyes towards the door at the front of the car.

“Well, I'll be goddamned,” said Applejack.

In the doorway of the car stood Rainbow Dash, wearing her Wonderbolts dress uniform, a navy blazer with her rank insignia on the left breast pocket.

“Hi, guys,” she said. “Going my way?”

Two minutes later, having finally pried herself free of Pinkie Pie's onslaught, Rainbow Dash sat down in the seat behind the sleeping Fluttershy.

“What's with her?” she asked, amazed that the commotion of Pinkie Pie's greeting hadn't roused the pegasus.

“She's been having it kinda rough,” said Applejack, who still had not risen from her seat.

“I can see that,” said Rainbow Dash. “What happened to her face?” Her brow furrowed.

“Long story,” said Applejack. “Don't know if she'd want me telling it.”

“It's okay,” came Fluttershy's voice. “I'll tell you later.”

Her eyes opened, and she lifted her head to look up at the blue pegasus.

“It's good to see you,” she said, her voice only slightly above a whisper.

“Good to see you, too, Fluttershy,” said Rainbow dash, and she reached down and touched the undamaged side of Fluttershy's face with a foreleg.

Fluttershy shut her eyes, once more, and returned her head to where it had lain.

“Reckon you're on your way to the Crystal City?” asked Applejack.

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “How have you two been?”

“Married three times,” said Pinkie. “None of 'em still around, but I've still got my babies.” She pulled a wallet from a pocket on her haunch that had no right to be there. She held it up, and a roll of pictures of her family dropped downward. It did not finish unraveling until it stopped at Rainbow Dash's hooves.

The pegasus looked down.

“Well, they're adorable, Pinkie,” she said frankly, and with a smile.

“I know,” said Pinkie Pie. “That's my whole world, right there.” She turned a little crank mounted on the side of the wallet, and the photos retracted back into it, making sounds like a tiny, winding anchor chain.

“How about you, AJ?” Rainbow Dash's voice sounded somewhat disdainful, and Applejack noticed that she was staring at the flask she was holding. She put it away.

“Been living alone, doing what I've always done,” she said, having stowed her liquor. “How's Wonderboltin' and such?”

“Everything I ever wanted,” said Rainbow Dash, but there was an emptiness behind her words that Applejack couldn't immediately place.

“Glad to know somepony's life ain't falling apart,” she said, deciding not to pursue it. She'd had enough to drink that she might be hearing things where there was nothing to be heard, anyway.

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “Good to see you guys are still making it.”

***

Right around the time that Rainbow Dash was being reunited with her friends in a train car below Cloudsdale, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and three younger and considerably more confused mares seemed to pop into existence in the royal chambers of the Crystal Palace.

“I see you got your cigarettes, Twilie,” said Shining Armor. He and Cadance had apparently been seated in the parlor, listening to an old jukebox that Shining had obtained from a defunct bar in Canterlot.

“Mmmhmm!” said Twilight, actually smiling. Years without a sip of alcohol had destroyed her tolerance completely, and it was showing.

“Great,” said Cadance. “And the one thing that I was actually glad of out of this whole mess was that it got her off those things.”

“She's like thirty,” said Shining. “She can smoke if she wants to.”

“Twenty-nine,” said Twilight, through lips half-clenched around the filter of a glowing Lucky Strike.

“Ooh,” said Rarity. “Starting to strike nerves, is it?”

“Careful, sis,” said Sweetie Belle, picking herself up from the heap she and her friends had collapsed into upon reappearing. “That's not a game you can win.”

“Please,” said Rarity. “I don't think she's so far gone she can't stand a little good-natured ribbing.”

“No, really,” said Twilight, through teeth lightly clenched around the butt of her cigarette, “be careful.”

“Well, you're no fun,” said Rarity, pursing her lips like pouting child.

“Wait a minute,” said Scootaloo. “Are we where I think we are?”

“Apparently,” said Cadance, “You're in a smoking lounge.” She stood up, walked over to a window, and opened it.

Twilight sighed, then walked over to the window. She took one more drag, then flicked her cigarette out of it. In a moment, it came back, still burning, and glowing the faint pink of Cadance' magic.

“No, go ahead,” she said. “If it makes you feel better, I don't care. The walls are made of rock, anyway. They won't take the smell too much. Just keep a window open.”

“Thanks,” said Twilight, quietly. The color of the glow around the cigarette shifted from pink to purple. She stared at it for a moment, then put it to her lips, and inhaled again.

As she turned back from the window, levitating the bottle of wine to her lips, she realized that everypony was watching her intently.

“What?” she asked, taking the cigarette away from her lips with a wing.

“We have wine in the cellar that doesn't taste like kerosene,” said Cadance.

“Yes,” said Rarity, pointing at the cigarette, “and if you insist on holding your cigarette that way, at least use a cigarette holder so you don't get burns and nicotine stains on your feathers; it looks a bit trashy.”

“Hey!” came Scootaloo's voice. She had at some point lit a cigarette herself, and was of course holding it between two distal primary feathers of her left wing. Cadance sighed loudly at the sight.

“Well, it seemed like you were cool with it,” said the pegasus. “Window's open,” she shrugged.

“She's got you on that one,” said Shining Armor.

***

As the train pulled into the Crystal Empire station, it was less the screech of its brakes and more the shift of momentum that pulled Fluttershy out of her slumber. As she sat up and looked around, she realized that the other three ponies were likewise awakening. She fluffed at her mane with her wings and hooves, trying to shake off the distinct, greasy sensation that always came out of a night of sleep without a pillow. It was only intensified by the awareness that she probably wouldn't be able to wash up in the immediate future.

She looked out at the great, shining tower of the Crystal Palace. When last had she laid eyes on it? She couldn't even remember. Unlike many things in her life, this was something she genuinely would have liked to recall. It seemed like decades, but she knew that couldn't be right.

“Seems like it was just yesterday, eh Fluttershy?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Huh?” She did not turn to look at Pinkie, but allowed her eyes to remain fixed on the distant, glistening tower. “Yeah, I guess so,” she heard herself say.

“So, she's really in there, huh?” asked Rainbow Dash, putting a hoof to her brow to shield her eyes against the intensity of Celestia's dawn.

“Yeah,” said Applejack. “Reckon so.”

The quartet piled off the car, and looked around. In many ways, the station remained the same. There were some new shops, owing to the encroachment of modern Equestria into Crystal Pony culture. One thing of note was a newsstand, where a crystal mare was filling the rack with copies of the Crystal Empire Press.

“Oh, my,” said Fluttershy, looking at the front page story.

“Oh, shit,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Look on the bright side," said Pinkie. "At least we know she's here."

“What are y'all...” was as far as Applejack got. Then came a “Ha.”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle seen Drunk, Smoking, Schmoozing With Celebrities.”

The photograph below the headline showed Twilight sitting at a table outside what appeared to be a coffee shop. Also present was Rarity, trying -- unsuccessfully -- to hide her face.

Applejack fished in her saddlebag, and threw the mare at the newsstand a bit.

“Reckon I'ma need me one-a these,” she said. “Gonna frame that shit.”

“What the hell is Rarity doing in the Crystal Empire?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“This is where Sweetie's tour is, right now,” said Pinkie Pie. "I keep up with it so I always know where Rarity is. It kinda makes me feel closer to her, somehow.”

“I miss her,” said Fluttershy.

“Well, you get to see her soon enough,” said Pinkie Pie. Then, her face lit up.

“That means Applebloom is here in town, doesn't it?” she asked Applejack.

“Yeah,” said the orange mare, her gaze and voice distant. “Suppose it does.”

***

Cadance had barely gotten her mane and makeup together for the day when a knock sounded at her door.

“Come in,” she said.

The door opened, and in stepped a guard, who bowed.

“Highness, there are ponies downstairs who claim to have business with... well... Princess Twilight.”

“This early?” she asked. “And who would want anything out of Twilight? She has no official duties.”

“They aren't here to see her in an official capacity,” said the guard. “They claim to be friends of hers.”

Cadance turned suddenly.

“What did they look like?” she asked.

“They were mares; two earth mares, and two pegasi. They were...” his words failed him.

“Strange?” There was a palpable eagerness in the word.

“Well... uh... yes,” he said, “but I didn't want to say it quite that way. Strangest thing was that I could have sworn one of them was Rainbow Dash – THE Rainbow Dash.”

“Bring them into the parlor," said Cadance, excitedly. "I'll go get her!”

Twilight woke from a dreamless sleep. Cadance was standing over her, and shaking her with a hoof. Her head was pounding with a red wine hangover, her first in most of a decade.

“Why do you keep messing up my deal?” asked Twilight.

“They're here,” said the pink alicorn.

“Oh, gods,” said Twilight. She didn't even have to ask who Cadance meant.

“Go tell Rarity,” said Twilight. “She'll want to...”

“I'm right over here, actually,” said Rarity. She was indeed standing just behind Cadance.

“What are you...”

Rarity cut off Twilight simply by grinning. She then levitated a pair of scissors and an impressive battery of cosmetics into the alicorn's field of vision. Twilight also noticed a faint lavender morning dress hanging on a hook behind her.

“Put your makeup on, and put your mane up pretty,” said Cadance, smiling.

“You still listen to Springsteed a lot, huh?”asked Twilight.

“Of course I do,” said Cadance. “After all, everything dies, baby, that's a fact.”

“But maybe everything that dies someday comes back,” mumbled Twilight. “I'll believe it when I see it.”

“Speaking of dye,” said Rarity, producing from her saddlebag a highlight kit. “I should get busy.”

“I'll go tell them she'll be down in... how long?” asked Cadance.

“Do you know who I am?” asked Rarity, haughtily. “Give me twenty.”

Cadance walked out, and shut the door behind her.

“Before you even touch me,” said Twilight, “you're not high, are you?”

“Far too early for that, darling.” She lifted her scissors. Now, be a dear and hold still, so I don't crop your ears.”

“How comforting,” said Twilight.

Well under twenty minutes later, Twilight found herself staring once more into a mirror, but this time, it was the similarity between her memories and her reflection that stunned her rather than the differences. Were it not for her being slightly taller, she would have sworn she was a decade in the past.

“Rarity, seriously, what the hell are you?” she asked, continuing to stare forward.

“It's called a friend,” said Rarity. “Don't worry. It'll all come back to you, shortly.”

She pulled Twilight out of the chair, and pushed her to the door. Twilight made no effort to resist. As she moved down the hallways and stairwells of the Crystal Palace, she felt as if time had softened around her in some way. It was as if her whole life came flooding back through her mind, leaving her unsure of how the choices she'd made had led her to where she now stood. She had never aspired to even have friends, much less be a Princess. She had only been fascinated by magic.

If she could have gone back, would she have told herself to just let it go? To just accept mediocrity, and to be an ordinary unicorn? Could it have saved her all the agony, confusion, and danger she had endured? Could it have spared her the loneliness? When all was said and done, had it been worth it to be Twilight Sparkle, at all?

As the door to the parlor opened, she found out.

There was a long moment of recognition. It was them, to be sure, but time had, in accordance with its nature, been unkind.

Rainbow Dash stood prouder somehow, though Twilight would once have not believed that possible. She seemed statelier, but there was a weight behind her eyes that had not existed before. Her face seemed drawn, somehow – and worried. The face of the rakish tomboy was gone. This was the face of one burdened with responsibilities and expectations; the face of a leader.

Applejack stood slightly stooped, and did not smile. She wore what Twilight could have sworn was the same, old Stetson, but it was now well-worn, and stained around its brim with dirt and sweat. She straightened her posture at the sight of the alicorn, but as she did, Twilight saw a slight tremor of pain shoot through her otherwise stolid expression.

Fluttershy left her slightly stunned. There was an ugly stitch above her eye, and the discoloration of a healing contusion around and beneath it. She seemed sad, her posture even more stooped than that of Applejack. A slight smile crossed her face as she saw Twilight, but it was less one of joy than one of relief. In its wake, she seemed to sink even lower, and her breathing seemed to slow itself. Her eyes teared.

Last of all there was Pinkie Pie. With the exception of a few laugh lines around the corners of her eyes, she seemed to have changed not at all. Predictably, she was the first to react to Twilight in earnest.

It was something between an embrace and an act of assault, accompanied by a sound somewhere between a gleeful squeal and a banshee's wail. It was the sound of years; of hope deferred and finally given its justification. Twilight barely managed to withstand it. The impact of the pink earth mare against her chest was audible; a hollow, meaty thud that rocked through her bones and into the very floor and walls.

She weathered it, and brought herself back aright.

Twilight stood a bit taller than Pinkie, now, and the little earth pony was crying into her chest like a foal with a skinned knee. Twilight stared down, her mouth slightly agape, and watched the fur around the three old scars darken with her friend's tears.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie,” she finally whispered.

Author's Note

There had to be at least one of these ponies whose life had turned out relatively okay. I picked Pinkie Pie because having her behaving normally (for Pinkie Pie) gave me an opportunity for an occasional moment of levity. It also made her a viable sounding board and foil for the other ponies. It was a lot to put on one character, but good, old Pinkamena was up the challenge.

Had to rely on a tiny info dump here in Luna's scene. I could have put together some kind of a contrived scene where it was being explained verbally by Celestia or Luna, but I just felt like, for once, quick and dirty was the way to go. I wanted this book to be readable and understandable to people who hadn't read "Sun Eater," and I didn't want to have to add an entire chapter to make that happen.

It's well-known to those who have read my work in the past that my Equestria contains some anachronisms. There are things from various times and places in our world that just... exist there. Whether it's a song, or Twilight's Lucky Strike cigarettes or white Bic lighter, I just like to stick little bits and pieces of the familiar into this setting. Also, white Bics are associated with bad luck, so it seemed fitting.

The song lyrics that Twilight and Cadance are quoting are taken from a Bruce Springsteen song called "Atlantic City." I guess in Equestria it would be "Crystal City," and have a few line changes, here and there. It just seemed like Cadance would be the kind to listen to Springsteen, if she was human, and those lyrics just work so well in this story that I couldn't resist.

I've been asked why I base so many things around things like characters eating or female characters applying their makeup, or like Shining Armor having a smoke on the balcony. To put it simply, I do it because that's where life really happens. Crisis is the exception, not the rule, even when you're building towards it.