We were sitting on rather small chair in this tiny, badly lit room. The handcuffs holding our wrists tightly together were linked to the metallic table by a rather heavy chain, making them feel uncomfortable. In front of us, another chair, that had been empty from the moment we had been thrown in a couple minutes before, and a big mirror on the wall. Hanging from the ceiling and resting only a meter or so above the table was the only light source in the room, a rather old-looking lamp that sizzled from time to time, making me think it would stop working any moment. And of course, the only door of the room rested, locked, on the side wall.

A stereotypical interrogatory room like any other, to put it shortly. Probably should have begun with that. Would have taken much less time.

As I've said, we had been thrown in only a couple minutes ago, but with Verso still doing whatever was keeping him away, I was already bored out of my mind, without anything to do. Of course, it was the first time we were ever thrown in an interrogatory room, so at first, I was pretty excited, but then, the guardponies misters just left us alone. I got over the excitement thing after only a minute.

I decided to make faces at the mirror to keep me entertained. Verso and the Institute's peoples said I shouldn't, 'cause people our age shouldn't act like that, but I don't really care: it's funny. End of the argument.

After a solid five minutes of me making the silliest imaginable faces at our reflexion and giggling at the funniest ones, someone finally entered. It was an earth-pony wearing a nice suit, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes and some sort of device in his ear-hole. Why he was wearing sunglasses while being inside a room is above me, but it gave him a cool look. Maybe that's why he was wearing them.

He sat down silently in front of us and laid down a thick file on the table. He browsed though a couple pages before he even looked in our direction.

"As you can see, we've had our eye on you for quite some time now, mister Verso," he finally said.
"Uh, I'm Recto right now, Verso is kind of asleep," I replied, smiling brightly. "Also, is that our 'mugshot' from earlier?" I asked, pointing our picture on the file with our chin. "It looks terrible. Can we take another one?"
"It seems that you've been living two lives," the pony continued, not giving attention to what I just said.
"Well, duh, we're two in here, of course we have," I told him, nearly giggling. Poor policeman-pony seemed pretty confused.
His eye twitched. "That isn't important, now, mister Verso-"
"Recto."
"-... What is important," he continued, glaring at us through his glasses, "is that you're implicated in an important crime, and that we need to know the truth of the story."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, confused. "Also, you never told me who you were, mister policeman-pony. Policepony? Is that how you say it?"
"Who I am is not relevant, wha-"
"Of course it is!" I said. "I can't keep thinking of you as 'mister policepony' all the time, now, can I? It would be repetitive and not nice to you."
He snorted in frustration. "If that makes you talking about the subject, I am Agent Smith. Now, can we-"
I snorted. "That's your name?" I said, giggling.
He looked like he was getting angry, so I quickly stopped, even though I couldn't get rid of my goofy smile just yet. "... Now that we all had a good laugh, could you please tell me why we discovered you standing next to doctor Mister Boddy's dead body, your hands covered in blood?"
I blinked. "Wait, now you're making up names, aren't you? Who would call their child 'Mister Boddy'? That's an awful name."
He barred his teeth. "Please answer the question."
"Well, he was leaking this red strawberry-juice-thingy from his temple, so I thought that I should probably try and do something. Verso wasn't there to tell me what to do, so I figured I should just, you know, put my hands on his head and try to stop the leak." I took on a grim look. "Didn't really work: you guys arrived and ordered me to step away."
"And why were you in his mansion for to begin with?" the stallion asked, now looking a bit interested. "Mister Boddy isn't known for his, well, willingness to meet non-nobles."
"That's because mister Prince Blueblood brought us there to present us to him!" I said proudly. "They were supposed to be great pals."
"His Highness Prince Blueblood took you to meet doctor Mister Boddy?" Agent Smith repeated, incredulous. "What were you doing with him in the first place?"
"He's our teacher for the Gala tomorrow!"
"... What?"
"Miss Princess Celestia made him our teacher a couple days ago so that we could learn to behave in society, because she punished Verso for being honest by forcing us to go at the party!"
He seemed surprised. And confused. Mostly confused, really. "What are you talking about? Start at the beginning. How did you meet the Prince?"
"Well..."

Two days ago

There was a moment of silence. Verso was looking at miss Princess Celestia a bit confused, but it was nothing next to mister Prince Blueblood's own stare of shock. He blinked several times and shifted his gaze between miss Princess Celestia and us a few times.

"What-" mister Prince Blueblood started.
"As my nephew, I know that you will be a good teacher to them, Blueblood," miss Princess Celestia interrupted him with a sweet smile.
"But... What are 'they' in the first place?" he asked. "There is only one of... whatever in Tartarus that thing is," he pointed out, pointing at us.
Oh, I already dislike him a lot.
But he does have a good point. I know it's always confusing for people to realize that there are actually two of us.
That's... not the problem, but forget it. Why don't you present yourself?
I did just that, taking the controls. I waved at the Prince and smiled. "Hello, mister Prince!" I said. "I'm Recto! Nice to meet you! And-"
He stared down at me, which is a pretty impressive feat since we were easily towering a couple of heads over him. "Yes, yes, hello," he interrupted me, looking back at miss Princess Celestia. "Why do you want me of all ponies to teach that creature? I'm sure some servant would be all-to-happy to do it!"
Miss Princess Celestia sighed. "I've been receiving multiple reports about your... behavior with some of our non-pony guests, Blueblood. I think this is a good way for you to... improve yourself."
She can't be seriously doing that, Verso whispered in disbelief.
He didn't let me present you! It's going to be much more complicated if he doesn't know quickly that you're here too!
"I... But..." mister Prince Blueblood said, confused.
"Besides, I'm sure they will both find your company endearing," miss Princess Celestia continued, smiling at us.
Oh dear heavens, she actually is doing that.
Doing what?
"'Both'? There's another?" mister Prince Blueblood hissed.
"That's what I was trying to tell you earlier. There's me, Recto, and then there's Verso." Say hello.
"Hello. I'm Verso," Verso said with the most empty-sounding voice ever.
Mister Prince Blueblood squinted his eyes. "Wha-"
"Recto and Verso here are what is called a 'human'," miss Princess Celestia intervened. "To put it quickly, view them as two different entities living in the same body."
"That's pretty much it," I confirmed, nodding.

Mister Prince Blueblood's stare was shifting between us, looking confused again. After a few seconds of silence, he blinked and took back a severe expression.

"Very well, Aunt Celestia. I will teach him... them how to behave correctly at the Gala, though it's still a mystery to me why you would let him enter it if he needs such... education."
"Thank you for you help, Blueblood. Now, I have yet to address a couple more matters with my guests, so it would be kind of you to wait for them outside. They shall follow you there shortly."

Mister Prince Blueblood nodded, knelt before miss Princess Celestia and walked outside, holding his nose high, which made me giggle. It simply looked silly. When he got outside and the doors were closed, Verso hijacked our body abruptly and immediately glared at miss Princess Celestia.

"No."
"It wasn't a question, Verso," she answered matter-of-factly. "Unless you want us to continue our previous conversation by answering my questions, you will spend the next days learning from Blueblood." Verso hissed at that but didn't answer, letting the Pristine Pony Princess continue. "And of course, I'm expecting that no harm whatsoever would come to my nephew while you're listening to his teachings," she said, losing her smile and locking eyes with us. "I could get quite... angry at the perpetrator if anything did happen to my dear nephew, am I clear?"
"Crystal."
"Good. Now, shoo!" she said, waving a hoof in the direction of the door. "Get to bonding with your new teacher. I'm a busy princess."
Verso glared at her one last time before he grabbed our bag, turned around and walked to the door. "Probably has some cakes to eat or something..." he muttered between our teeth.
"I heard that!" miss Princess Celestia called as we opened the door.

Verso simply grunted and exited the Throne room, arriving before the small regiment of guards that miss Princess Celestia had forced to leave earlier. Most of them simply glanced at us before they entered the room and went back to their position immediately. Mister Prince Blueblood was waiting for us, still holding his nose high as if cupcakes angels were flying above his head. He looked down on us when he noticed that we were outside. An impressive feat, considering how much taller than him we were.

"I see you have finally decided not to keep me waiting, human. Let that be a first lesson for you: do not, under any circumstances, make a noble wait more than necessary." I heard Verso growling in our mind. Mister Prince Blueblood turned around and walked down the corridor, still keeping his head high. "Now, follow me, I have matters to tend before the Gala."

I complied, happy to follow our new teacher, who looked very different from every other professors we had before. I glanced at his flank to look at his cutiemark: a simple star-shaped wind rose. I pondered silently at its signification for a few minutes. I had learned during our very first day on Equestria that cutiemarks, ponies' names and appearances were frequently related, but nothing came to me, so I resorted to the simple option when in doubt:

"Mister Prince Blueblood?" I asked.
"It's 'your Highness' Prince Blueblood, human," he corrected me. "But I'll forgive that error this time. What do you want?"
Verso growled again. "I was curious about the signification of your cutiemark. Why is it a wind rose?"
He glanced at us, slightly surprised. "I am surprised you know about this term. Most ponies refer to it as a compass. I suppose you may not be as simple-minded as you look with that goofy smile on your face."
"... Thanks?" I tried, not really sure about how to react to his strange praise. Verso simply growled more. I was starting to get the feeling that he really didn't like mister Prince Blueblood.
"You're welcome. And to answer your question, my mark shows that I am destined to lead our nation where it should go. I can simply know the way Equestria needs to take. And as an Equestrian Unicorn Prince, I have the power needed to follow such a way."
Verso growled again. I nodded. "So you're like a GPS or something, right?"
He stopped walking and looked at us, confused. "Pardon me?"
"You're excused, though I have no idea what you did." Verso mind-palmed and snorted. "Also, since you said you have a built-in mapping system, can you get us to our room?" I indicated the bags I was carrying. "They're rather heavy and I'd like to drop them in our room."

Mister 'Your Highness' Prince Blueblood stopped walking and looked at me with his mouth hanging open, his eyes staring at an unseen illogical absurdity. I stopped too and, after a few awkward silent seconds had passed, I waved a hand in front of his eyes.

"Hello? Are you okay, mister Your Highness?"
Hearing me again seemed to reconnect him to reality, as his eyes focused again, homing on ours. He slapped our hand away from his face, infuriated. "Do NOT treat me as a domestic, human!" he shouted, making me step back. "You cannot order me around!"
"Wh- But I didn't give you any-"
"The nerve you have to simply insinuate..."

If Verso had been toying with some sort of stick while mister Your Highness Prince Blueblood and I were talking, it would have snapped right there and then. He took control and levitated our bag off our shoulders and onto the ground. He also glared a mighty storm at mister Your High- oh, this name is just so long to say, I'll get over the 'Highness' part- Prince Blueblood.

"You will shut your trap immediately, you poor excuse of an aristocrat," he growled, slowly letting his voice grow louder, "or you better believe that no amount of threat from you 'oh-so-perfect' solar princess will stop me from ripping your obviously over-used tongue from your mouth and shove it so far up your rectum that it will finally get in contact with your seemingly lonely brain for the first time in your pathetic life!"

"He seriously told that to his Highness Prince Blueblood?" officer Agent Smith asked, interrupting me in my story.
"Yes. I don't really know if he was serious, because that sounded kind of messy, but then again, he was angry."
"Oh, boy, I'd have paid to see that's prick's face..." he whispered, doing his best to hide a smile. He cleared his throat. "But I'm sorry to interrupt you, please continue."
"Well, as you can guess, mister Prince Blueblood was pretty shocked..."

The Prince stopped talking and blinked. I mentally blinked. The mare down the alley stopped walking and blinked. A couple of guard-ponies looked at us and blinked. Verso didn't. Instead, he cleared our throat, grabbed our bags again and walked up to the nearly petrified mare, leaving mister Prince Blueblood behind.

"Excuse me, would you happen to know where my room is, by any chance?" he calmly asked, doing his best to get a nice smile on our face.

That wasn't working. Verso is terrible with nice smiles. And terrible is putting it nicely. Nevertheless, the poor mare managed to mutter something that sounded like 'Same as before'. Verso nodded and started to walk in the right direction, which coincidentally made us walk back in front of the throne room's doors again.

That's when mister Prince Blueblood caught back to us. He looked funny, with his face all red and scrunched up. He also apparently forgot that he was supposed to use an inside voice.

"Who in Tartarus do you think you are?!" he screamed. "You just threatened me!"
"Yes, I did," Verso replied without even stopping to have a chat. "And I'll do it again if you keep talking to Recto with that tone. And if you keep on doing it after a chosen number of warnings, well... Let's just say that the maids would have a really bad day cleaning what little I'd have left of you on the floor."
Mister Prince Blueblood somehow managed to get his face even redder and scrunchy-er, then he turned to the guards on each side of the door. "You two! Seize him! He is threatening my royal person!"

Verso stopped walking. The guards glanced at each other, before they staring back at mister Prince Blueblood for a handful of seconds. Then, they slowly turned their heads in our direction. Verso glared at them. Meanly. The two guardponies gave each other another look before turning back to mister Prince Blueblood.

"I didn't hear anything ressembling a threat, your Highness," one of them declared. "The human seemed to have stayed pretty polite and humble."

Verso raised an eyebrow in surprise. Mister Prince Blueblood turned so red and scrunchy I'd have sweared he was about to turn into a tomato.

"You dare to defy a direct ordery from royalty?! I'll have your gallons, soldier!" he shouted. "But fine! If you two cowards aren't going to do your duty, I will!"

To accentuate his words, his horn lit up with magic. Verso immediately did the same and emitted a sense field. Mister Prince Blueblood seemed awfully surprised to see the magical light surrounding our hands.

"How can... Only unicorns and the Princesses are able to... Nevermind, it doesn't matter! I've been Canterlot's highlight duelist three years in a row, so none of your pathetic little tricks will be able to protect you, human!"
"Funny you would say that, your Highness, I was just thinking the same."
Hum, Verso? Maybe you should calm down a bit...
Hey, he's the one attacking me. It's only self-defense.
Maybe, but miss Princess...

I didn't have the time to finish that thought before the doors flew open and miss Princess Celestia caught both mister Prince Blueblood and us in her own telekinesis. She didn't look happy. At all.

"I leave you three alone for just five little minutes and I can already hear you fight just in front of my door. I must say, I am disappointed, but sadly not that surprised."
"Hey! He started!"
"You liar! You started threatening and insulting me!"
"Both of you foals will stop arguing that instant!" miss Pristine Pony Princess said with a scary voice. Verso and mister Prince Blueblood both obeyed. She kept glaring at both of them before she finally sighed and looked kindly at my eye. "Recto, could you please tell me what happened?"
I got to the front, all too happy to answer her demand, but mister Prince Blueblood's offended voice beat me to it. "Why would you hear him first?"
"Because unlike you and Verso, he wasn't fighting."
"But..."

Miss Princess Celestia silenced him with a look before she made a sign for me to start talking.

"Well, mister His Higness Prince Blueblood had just finished telling me that he had a cutiemark in knowing which way to go so I asked him to guide us to our room so that we could leave our bag there instead of carrying it around all the time but he got angry for some reason and started shouting so Verso intervened and told a bunch of mean things to him before asking some mare about our room's positon and walking back to it but then mister His Highness Prince Blueblood shouted on us while he looked like a tomato and he told the guardponies to catch us but Verso got his mean look on and the guards told mister His Highness Prince Blueblood that they were partially deaf which is really bad and they should probably see a doctor pony about that but then mister His Higness Prince Blueblood said he would have their boats and lit up his magic and Verso did too and they said a bunch of things again and you arrived and * GAAAASSSP for air * that's about it, miss Princess Celestia."

Miss Princess Celestia blinked. Mister Prince Blueblood blinked. The guardponies blinked. Verso mindpalmed. Then, slowly, she turned her head to look at the guards, who were trying to make themselves as little as possible.

"One of you has earing problems?"
The guard that said that he didn't hear Verso's words cleared his throat. "Well, no, your Highness. But we didn't want to..."
"And Prince Blueblood said he would take your... boats?"
"I said no such thing! These poor excuses for soldiers couldn't even afford one! This human guest of yours is lying!"
"If I may," Verso intervened, rubbing the bridge of our nose, "I think Recto mistook the word 'gallon' for 'gallion'. It happens."
Huh? What's a 'gallon' then?
To put it shortly, military ranking.
Oh. That makes sense.
"So, if I understood correctly, you got in a fight because Prince Blueblood got angry when you asked him direction, and because of Verso's usual over-reaction?" I nodded, she sighed. "What am I going to do with you two..."
"You can't..!" Mister Prince Blueblood tried to say something, but his lips suddenly turned into a zip and closed themselves. That was weird.
"I'm going to give you two one last chance to interact like proper sentient beings," Miss Princess Celestia said. "But I'll have you both know that if I hear you either started to fight again or decided to ignore each other, you'll both be punished, Blueblood and Verso. Am I clear?"
"Pff. You have no proper way to punish me, Celestia," Verso said, smiling smugly.
"I'd say an entire week dedicated to help the maids would do both of you quite a good experience, don't you think?" Verso stopped smiling. Mister Prince Blueblood started sweating. Miss Princess Celestia smiled. "Very well. I'll leave you three to it then. Have a good day."

Without any further explanations, she let us fall back to our feets and walked back inside the throne room while mister Prince Blueblood's mouth turned back to normal. We stayed silent for a while. Then, Verso grabbed our bag again and turned to look at the prince.

"Well, Prince? Shall we go?"

***

"Things got easier after that. Mister Prince Blueblood spent the whole day talking to us about how we should talk to nobility, boring stuff like that. Honestly, I didn't even listen to most of it. I'd have died of boredom!"
"Honestly, mister Verso-"
"Recto. I'm Recto."
"... Mister Recto, I don't see how that gets us anywhere near your presence in Mister Boddy's home."
"Oh, that didn't happen until later. We followed mister Prince Blueblood's lessons during a couple days. It was hellishly boring, I'll pass you the details. Basically, we studied, ate dinner with miss Princess Celestia and Luna, who simply refused to talk to Verso unless he told her why he decided to go alone in the old castle, even though he answered a couple of times already. Then, we went to bed and woke up, to start all over again. It was sooo boring that we woke up tired because of it. Isn't that strange?"
"And what about today?" Agent Smith asked.
"Well..."

***

I yawned again, nearly dropping the pastry I was about to eat. I really didn't understand why I was so tired. We went to bed early the two nights before and still, I felt horribly tired. Maybe we were sick? We never got much worse than a cold back in the Institue, but I had read about being sick in books. They were supposed to make you feel tired. I grew kinda envious of Verso who told me he was going to sleep a bit more right after we woke up, preventing me from doing the same.

"Are you feeling okay, Recto?" Luna asked. "You are usually more 'springy' on mornings. Today, I don't think your said anything out of the basic good-manners."
"We're fine, it's just that I think mister His Highness Prince Blueblood's lessons are boring enough to suck my energy dry."
"Is that so?" She said, sipping her cup of tea again. "Well you just have to ask Verso to spill the beans about his true intentions in our old castle to make it stop, you know?"
I sighed. She had been pretty fixated on that, as I said. "I don't understand what you want him to say. We really just went there for the adventure and to read some old books."

She gave me a disapointed look but didn't add anything. We stayed silent for a few more intants before miss Princess Celestia asked:

"Do you know what my nephew has prepared for you today?" As I shook our head to answer, she continued. "I heard he was going to lunch with one of his friends and was taking you with him."
Luna threw her a dubious glance. "That's... Unexpectedly nice of him."
"Indeed it is. Have you gotten closer to Blueblood than I expected, Recto?"
"Of course I have!" I answered, pumping our chest full with pride. Luna snorted. "As boring as mister Prince Blueblood's lessons are, I'm pretty sure we could nearly call each other friends!"
"Is that so?" Luna asked slowly, raising an eyebrow.
"Huh huh," I confirmed with a nod.

We finished eating shortly after and I got back to our room to prepare for the day. Once I was finished there, I walked to where we were to meet mister Prince Blueblood. Which, coincidentally, happened to be just in front of his room. I tried to get him to meet us in front of our room, but he scoffed in our face and went on for a solid twenty minutes on why it was, and I quote, 'outrageous that I would dare to ask nobility to disturb itself because of a commoner's laziness'.

Anyway, since Verso had told me to wake him up only when we would see the prince, I started to wait, as mister Blueblood had instructed us. About half an hour later, I was getting tired of making faces at a statue when I heard mister Prince Blueblood behind us.

"What in Celestia's name are you doing?"
"Ah! You're finally here!" I said, turning to face him. "Just a moment, please..." Verso! Verso, wake up! Mister Blueblood is out!
I only had to wait an instant before his groggy voice replied. Already? Damn, I thought he would take longer than that...
Well, he didn't.
I focused back on the real world and smiled at the grumpy-faced prince. "Good morning, mis- err, your Highness. Did you sleep well?"
He snorted. "It seems you've at least remembered the basics, human. Well, let's not waste more time, I have an appointment scheduled this morning, and I have no choice but to bring you along. So, come."
"Yes, mister your Highness!" I said, excited.

I followed him out of the castle to a fairly nearby huge house, Verso grumbling all the way, saying that I could have let him sleep through that. When we arrived, mister Prince Blueblood knocked a couple times on the door and waited. A few seconds later, it openned on what I could only assume was a butler pony with an impressive mustache. He quickly glanced in our direction before resting his stare on Prince Blueblood.

"The Count didn't warn me that you were coming, your Highness. Please, excuse me for the delay in my response."
A delay? We barely waited!
"You're excused, butler. Now stop blocking the way and let us in, already."
"Are you bringing your... guest in as well, your Highness?" The butler asked, once again sparing an inquisitive glance in our direction.
"Yes, I am," mister Prince said coldly.

The butler nodded, eyed us again and went in. Mister the prince entered too, so I followed them, closing the door behind us. Butler-pony guided us to a small living room filled with bookcases and with paintings of old ponies wearing silly hats while taking serious expressions.

"The Count will arrive shortly," the butler said before he left us.
As soon as the door closed, Verso took over. "Why are you visiting this count, prince?"
"Humpf. As impertinant as always, I see." He waited a couple seconds for Verso to correct himself, but it obviously didn't come. "The Count and I have some business to talk about, but that doesn't concern you. The reason why you are here is partly because aunt Celestia promised retribution if we were to get separated, and partly because I want to know you'll handle discussing with another noble."
"Is there anything I should know about our host?"
"Well, he made his fortune by owning a couple newspapers and studies medicine in his free time. He takes great pride in that one, so much in fact that he tends to make himself call a doctor."
"Oh, an intellectual?" Verso called in surprise. "That could lead to interesting conversations."
Mister Prince Blueblood snorted. "As if somepony like you could sustain a conversation with one of Canterlot's elite."
Verso glared darkly at him. "I highly doubt that any of you 'elite' knows but a tenth of what I have learned over the years, pony. You probably know your History and your geography better than I, but you would be absolutely crushed by my scientific knowledge. Show some respect, you uneducated prick."
The prince was now staring at us shocked, his jaw hanging in an unarticulated retort. It took him a couple seconds to reply. "How dare you?! You insignificant-!"
"Your Highness!" a voice interrupted just as the door flew open.

An older unicorn with a gray coat, a white mane and mustache, wearing a black suit entered and closed the door behind him.

"I wasn't expecting a visit from you this close to the Grand Galloping Gala. What can I do for you, my prince?" He quickly glanced in our direction and his empty-looking smile turned into a frown for a second. "Do you seek help with a new pet, maybe?"
Mister Prince Blueblood puffed and I felt heat coming to our face. "I am not a pet!" Verso growled, and the old unicorn stepped back, surprised.
"Oh, excuse me, I had you mistaken for some sort of monkey. These creatures are at best rather clever for animals, but I would not say 'intelligent'."
Calm down, I said, anyone could have mistaken us for something else. Most ponies don't know what a human is, right?
He cooled down a bit, but kept glaring at the newcomer. "I accept your excuses. In your defense, I am the only one of my kind here and my species does share ancestors with monkeys."
Mister Prince Blueblood's eyes sparkled when Verso said that. "I didn't know you were some sort of monkey, though I do see the resssemblance now that the Count pointed it."
Verso glared at him again. "I am not a monkey, Blueblood."
"But you just said that you had monkey ancestors, mister..?" the count insisted.
"Verso. And I didn't say that some of my ancestors were monkeys, I said that our species shared rather recent ancestors. Doesn't a doctor like you know of the Theory of Evolution?"
"The Theory of what?" he asked, confused.

Verso threw our arms in the air and turned back,to look at the paintings and books in the living room, muttering some mean things about ponies being dumb, stupid, uneducated- you probably got the idea. The count looked confused at us for a couple moments still before he shooks his head and looked back at mister Prince Blueblood.

"Forget him. He tries to make himself sound more cultured than anypony but always ends up spouting some nonsense. Just the other day, he was pretending that light was actually composed of little particles that don't have any weight. Doesn't that sound just absurd?"
"Indeed it does," the doctor pony confirmed. Verso whined internally. "But, what gives me the honor of your visit today, your Highness?"
"Oh, yes," he said, his voice growing colder. "I have come to you today to ask you to print out an excuse for the lies in an article about me you published yesterday in the Canterlot Daily. Immediately."
Oh, that could be interesting... Verso thought as he kept looking at the titles of several books while giving his full attention to the conversation.
"What article are you talking about, your Highness? And I assure you, my reporters do not lie in their writings."
"I'm sure you know the one, Count," mister Prince Blueblood nearly spat. "But in case you needed a reminder, I am talking about the article that speaks about some sort of romantic relationship between myself and miss Fleur de Lys!"
Oh, skies, just some boring extramarital affair between horses. What a let down.
Extra-what now?
Uh... How should I... Blueblood tried to act as if someone else's girlfriend was his girlfriend, and a news-reporter probably saw them and wrote an article to let everyone know.
Oh. I... I'm not sure what to...
Blueblood is being shamed down because he is an idiot, and he is trying to put it under the rug.
"I can assure you, your Highness, that none of my reporters would dare to publish such an article without being absolutely sure that..."
"I don't care what your reporters would do!" mister Prince Blueblood shouted. "I want this story removed and I want your journal to make excuses for daring to make up such news for the shock value!"
"Prince Blueblood, I am insulted that you simply insinuate that my journal would do such a thing!" the Count replied, equally loud. "Besides," he added, barely audible, "a marizer such as yourself has no lesson in honesty to give me."
"You dare-!"
Heh. Funny.
No, it's not. They're getting really angry at each other. I mentally gasped. Maybe they will get so upset at each other that they won't be friends anymore! That would be horrible! We have to stop them!
Why? It's entertaining to see them fight like that.

It is, ī̘̪͙̮̅̾ͮn̼̰̼͔̖̱ͯ͒̌̚d͕̦͈͋̆̅̐ḛ̪̓̅ed͑̉͒ͧ̓.̮̋̾ͤͤ͂

I wondered where this voice came from for a second before I felt something like an icy spike violently entering our head and we blacked out.

"I was in control when we woke up, and while Verso wasn't quite sleeping, he didn't react when I called him a couple times," I told the inspector in front of us. "I got up to our feet and looked around. I quickly realized that mister Prince Blueblood was nowhere to be seen, but it took me some time to spot mister Count Doctor Boddy laying on the ground, glass shards around his head. Some really liquid kind of red jam was covering his head and the carpet underneath him, as well as most of the shards. I got next to mister Doctor Boddy and tried to get his head rid of some of the jam and to wake him up. A handful of seconds later, you policeponies entered the room, shouted at me to get away from him and to lay flat on the ground, so I did. Do I need to keep talking, or is it okay if I stop? Because it's getting long and you know the rest of the story."
"That will be fine, mister Ver-.. mister Recto. So, you are saying that you fell unconscious while his Highness Prince Blueblood and doctor Boddy were having a fight and that you woke up only a few moments before the policeponies, arrived, is that right?"
"Well, yes."
"Is it possible that your other half -mister Verso- could have still been awake while you were unconscious?"
"Well, Verso sometimes ask me to go to sleep when he has to do something that he thinks I should not see, or when he wants to have a private conversation with someone. But I always decide myself to sleep, so I think we simply had a big headache and that we fell unconscious or something like that."

Officer Agent Smith nodded and stayed silent for a few moments, while he was writing down something on a blank page in our file. I kept quiet too, looking around us, waiting for him to finish. A handful of seconds later, he stopped writing, closed the file and stood up.

"Very well, mister Recto. I will leave you alone for a moment while I speak with my superiors, and then we will see what happens now. I'll be back soon."
I nodded. "Okay, mister policepony. But, uh, could you get me some sort of towel or anything? I'd like to wash our hands of the dried jam."
He blinked. "That's not... I'll get you something."

He opened the door and asked for a towel, that he gave me before leaving the room completely. I washed our hands as I could and started to wait. Again. It's really boring to have to wait when Verso isn't around to chat with. But he still wasn't answering my calls, which was starting to creep me out a little bit, so it's not like I had the choice.

I don't know how long exactly I had to wait (I'd say a really long time, but I know time seems to pass slower when you're bored) before anything happened. And 'anything' wasn't anything at all: we got instantly teleported from our interrogation room to the throne room. Miss Princess Celestia was sitting on her throne and Luna was sitting next to her on what looked like a really comfy dark blue pillow. The room was devoid of guards, strangely, and the two princesses were looking down at us.

"Miss Princess Celestia! Luna! It's nice seeing you so soon! But, huh, we were in an interrogation room just now, and I think the policeponies would get really upset if-"
"I told them it was alright to let you go, Recto," miss Princess Celestia said in a somewhat cold tone.
I smiled brightly. "Really? That's so nice of you! Will they be alright with their investigation? They could need me to keep telling them everything that happened. Well, I already have, but may want some precisions of that sort of thing."
Luna glanced at her sister for an instant before letting her eyes rest on us again. "They shall be alright, Recto, rest assured," she said. "We have been given an exemplary of the report your testimony helped fill, and we judged that it would be better for everypony if we could see you as soon as possible."
I was surprised. "Really? You want to know something? Oh, and do you know if mister Boddy is alright? I forgot to ask the policepony earlier."
This time, they both shared a glance. "Count Boddy is dead, Recto," miss Princess Celestia said.
I blinked. "What?"
"The pony my nephew brought you to meet is dead. He has been assassinated."
I felt our legs becoming pretty weak under us. "What- No, he's not. Verso was talking to him just this morning and..."
"He was killed."

I fell down, forced to seat as our legs didn't support us anymore. In fact, I could hardly feel anything from waist down. I remembered the very first instants after I woke up, when I grabbed mister Boddy and tried to clean him of...

"That... That wasn't jam, was it?" I squeaked more than I asked as I suddenly had trouble talking in the first place. I could feel my body growing cold. Unbearably so.
"No. That wasn't," Luna said, her voice suddenly soft again.

The cold gained again in intensity. I wasn't supposed to be this cold. It was... painful. I could also feel every ounce of energy leaving me, making me feel drowsy. I was getting tired. So tired... The world around me was slowly disappearing. Maybe... Maybe sleeping would make the cold go away? I thought.

Then, I felt Verso coming back to the front. I felt his warm mind surrounding mine, and I forgot the horrible cold that was coursing through our body just moments ago. And I heard his voice rocking me gently to sleep. And I fell asleep.

Okay, I'm pretty certain that you would like to know what happened those days from my point of view, right? Of course you do, you wouldn't have forced us to tell you otherwise. Well, here are the parts Recto left out.

I take it that you're wondering why we were so strangely tired after Blueblood's lesson, even though I had insisted that Recto got to sleep early? Well, I'm sure you're smart enough to have figured it out: when he fell asleep, I didn't. During those two nights I decided to instead try and read as much of Luna's diary as I could. Now, you surely remember how I usually do this: look at a bunch of pages while I'm keeping our body awake and then read them via our memory while our body was resting. Well, it didn't work with that fucking book, for some bullshit reason. When I was looking at it via our memories, the text was simply worming around the pages, illisible. So I decided that I would do it the old fashioned way: by looking through it while awake. I will also take this opportunity to remind you that Kay was getting able to speak through the Gate again, so all in all, not spending my entire night in that place wasn't so bad.

Anyway, back to business. Luna's diary was really interesting. She probably started it when she was really young, though I'm not sure how old she was exactly. But, strangely, it always referred to the princesses parents as being 'away', even when she was really young. In fact, I'm pretty confident that Luna was raised nearly solely by her older sister.

Apparently, the Royal sisters weren't always 'Royal'. The diary implies that Luna was born not long before Discord brought down Equestria's prior government and started to rule himself. Celestia herself was barely in her mid-teens when the diary starts. And they were apparently moving from town to town, trying to keep their nature as alicorns a secret from other ponies as much as they could. According to what she told her sister, Celestia had been told by their parents before they 'went away' that they had to find a way to stop Discord and restore harmony to Equestria, or some other bullshit like that.

Personally, I think their parents were dead and that Celestia was one lucky delusional teenage pony.

Where was I... Oh, yeah. So, they traveled quite a bit, searching for a way to get rid of Discord. And when I say quite a bit, I mean it: Luna was nineteen when she first heard her sister talk about the Tree of Harmony. She heard that it was supposed to fight evil doers and bring peace to the world. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Well, that's what Luna thought too. She actually thought that, being powerful alicorns and everything, they could defeat Discord on their own.

So, when she heard that Discord was playing with the inhabitants of a nearby town, can you guess what she did? Three chances and the first two don't count.

She went to fight him on her own. Of course, she was rescued by her sister at the last minute, before Discord could completely whoop her ass. So they got better. But Discord was aware that they existed, now, so he started to play a little game with them. He chased them down a bit, before he got bored and used the easy way: he took a city in hostage where he knew the sisters had passed shortly before him, and shouted all around Equestria that they had a couple days to surrender to him before he turned every pony in town into newts or other small creatures.

Thankfully for them, the town also happened to be situated only a day away from the cave that the mysterious Tree of Harmony resided in. So they walked through a cursed forest, into a cave, found the Tree, took its 'Elements', made their way back to the town, and finally turned a laughing Discord into stone.

You have no idea how much I would have paid to see that.

Anyway, the Elements destroyed the effects of Discord's magic of the land and restored Equestria to its former beauty. The ponies then made them their leaders and they built a castle right over the Tree's cave. In the cursed forest. That was somehow supposed to be kept in check by a now near-powerless magical tree.

As stupid as I try to make it sound (and as it was), it worked really well. The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters soon became surrounded by a city, and the alicorn sisters ruled from there. I'll pass on some uninteresting things, like the changeling attacks or the political events and all that boring stuff. They had to repel a number of other monsters with the elements, mainly Tirek, some sort of demon-centaur-king that steals magic. I remembered that Twilight said that she (and he friends) had defeated him, so I decided to ask for clarifications later. But, according to the diary, he was unthinkably old. His brother, Scorpan, had come a couple centuries before as a scout for their invasion and was befriended by Starswirl the Bearded. Now, I knew that name, because Twilight simply won't shut up about him, and he apparently meant really big deal. Then, Scorpan got back to his brother Tirek and neither of them were heard for centuries.

That is, before he came back, half-dead, to meet the freshly-crowned Princesses and warn them that, despite his best efforts to stop his brother for more than two hundred years, Tirek was coming to Equestria to eat their magic. The Princesses saved Scorpan and dealt with the demon-centaur-king-thing accordingly (understand, by taking away his power, turning him into a raggedy old centaur and imprisoning him directly inside pony-hell, which coincidentally is named Tartarus).

The next interesting item in the story was their discovery and relationship with the Crystal Empire. Nearly just a week after they had gotten rid of Discord, and only a couple days after their coronation, the Princesses received the visit from strange-looking earth-ponies that shimmered like crystals. They said they were diplomats from the distant Crystal Empire, a huge city of crystal ponies far, far up in the north, and that they had been sent to establish diplomatic and trading relationship with the alicorn sisters. Now, I'll try to be clear; at this period of time, there were no vehicles to make anyone go faster than they were able to walk on their own. Which meant that earth-ponies and unicorns walked, and that pegasi flew, and that's it. They said that they had been sent as soon as they knew that Discord had been defeated.

Now, try to keep up with me on this point: to reach the Empire by foot, one would have at least a one month journey in front of himself. They had done so in seven days. That's bound to pick people's interest. When asked, they answered that they of course didn't walk all the way from there, that would have been silly.

No, the two wingless ponies flew from there, of course.

Luna thought they were nutjobs, but her sister thankfully didn't and upon further discussion with the two envoys. It appeared that the Empire had some sort of strange magical technology up in its sleeves that had allowed them to use unicorn-grade magical manipulation to give themselves wings. They performed in front of the entire Court and, indeed, they gave themselves wings. Luna described it as one of the most mind-bending spectacles she had seen to this point.

So they of course opened trade with the Empire. It went well for over seventy years, during which Equestria recovered a lot of ancient texts that had been destroyed by Discord in their land via the Empire, as well as some magical know-how. But every good thing has an end, and the peaceful relationship with the Empire met a somber one. Heh.

You have to know that the Empire was ruled by the Imperial Family, a bunch of strange-looking unicorns that crowned themselves King or Queen of the place heaven-knows how long ago. For sixty years, Equestria's relationship had started with a young king and continued upon his (natural) death with his wife, the Queen. But, eventually, the Queen died too, and the crown went down one level on the family tree to rest onto their son's head, King Sombra, named after his unusual dark coat.

Sombra started out as a pretty friendly king too, but that wasn't meant to last. Soon, the Empire was under attack by a bunch of dragon, who looked upon the town as a giant snack. Their most powerful relic, the Crystal Heart, was visibly able to contain usual attacks, but this raid was insistant, and soon, Sombra asked for Equestria's help. Sadly, Equestria itself was under attack in a number of places by several changeling hives, so they couldn't spare the military power required to help their neighbors.

Becoming desperate that the dragons may well pierce through the Heart's defenses, Sombra searched for a way to defeat them once and for all. Then, one day, it happened. Luna's diary said that the Dragons weren't just defeated there, but that they fled in utter terror and that most of them swore to never, EVER go back there, even if they had to starve. A couple months later, when the hives were finally eradicated, Luna went to the north to meet Sombra and ask how he succeeded.

When Luna arrived, the Empire appeared darker than usual. The Crystal Heart was nowhere to be seen, the ponies were hanging their head low, the whole city seemed to be mourning. When she finally reached the King, Sombra was changed. His horn had been turned red, his eyes were now red and green where they were supposed to be red and white, and purple energy was pouring from the King's eyeballs.

And he was furious. No, furious doesn't even begin to cover the state of his anger against the dragons, Celestia, Luna, Equestria, and the world in general. But mainly the dragons. He told Luna that, since the dragons were starting to breach the Heart's shield, and that his own soldiers weren't enough to fight the giant lizards back, he had to use unconventional means to protect his kingdom. He had found a book that taught him how to use ancient and incredibly powerful magic to defend his kingdom, but that he had to deactivate the Crystal Heart for it to work. Hopeless, he followed the book's instructions and was granted the power he needed. But, sadly, between the moment that the Heart was switched off and his own counter attack, a couple dragons were able to attack the city, and they killed a few ponies, mainly Sombra's wife.

He also discovered that he couldn't just now replace the Crystal Heart in its place, since now that he had this dark power inside him, the Heart would destroy him upon activation. And he accused Equestria's unwillingness to help as the source of this tragedy. He burned the bridges between the two kingdoms and forbid the Equestrians to ever come back in his realm.

The two kingdoms remained separated for ten years, no information filtering from the Empire at all. Until, one day, Sombra's daughter and a servant arrived in front of the Royal Sisters and begged them for help. Sombra had gone mad and reduced their people into slavery, obsessing over crystals for some unknown reason. He was using his magic to keep the crystal ponies from escaping, forcing fear and sadness into their heart with his dark magic.

Celestia and Luna went to the Empire, bringing the Elements with them. They were intending to try and reason the mad king first, and, if that didn't work, to save his own people from himself. Sombra laughed in their face and attacked them. Luna, ever the so easily defeated, was hit by his then-famous terror spell, and while she didn't mention exactly what she saw, it shook her to the bottom of her being. Celestia helped her sister to recover and they blasted the King of the North with the Elements, turned him to shadows and banished him under the ice of the arctic north. But he had cursed his whole Empire and the Crystal Kingdom vanished.

The Princesses were feeling guilty to have failed in their rescue mission and Sombra's daughter was devastated. She nevertheless chose to stay in Equestria's court, in the hope that, one day, the Empire would come back.

Now, I'm pretty sure that your are enchanted to go through Equestria's lore. Don't try to hide it, next to nobody likes sitting down and being told about history that they probably already knew anyway, but you asked me to tell you my story as I experienced it, and the informations I retrieved from this book are crazy important. Without going any further, I already knew that I wanted to go to the Crystal Empire to maybe study their magical ways and discover a way to get rid of Kay and the Whispers.

But the Diary wasn't over, of course. Now, it was starting to get interesting. You see, soon after her fight against Sombra, Luna became a bit more paranoid. Being younger, smaller and less powerful than the almighty Celestia already meant that she wasn't being loved as much as her sister by most of the population, but she was beginning to recognize fear in the eyes of her subjects when they were talking to her. Soon, she became persuaded that her ponies hated her and her night and that her very own sister was doing her best to enforce this fear to promote herself. She became jealous, and afraid that, maybe, her sister may try to get rid of her one day. She became crazier and crazier each month, finally getting in her head that the night needed to be longer than the day by a generous margin.

Four years after her fight with Sombra, she started to experiment with her own version of dark magic, what she called 'Nightmare magic'. And the following year, during the Summer Solstice, she decided to act.

That was the end of the journal, but I had a rough idea of how things went, thanks to the ever-so-talkative Twilight Sparkle: the moon princess 'embraced the nightmare', forced the day to stop via an eclipse, beat Celestia senseless and finally got her ass handed to her by being imprinted on the moon for a thousand years via the Elements.

Now, as much as I loved having more informations on Sunbutt and Moonhide to emotionally blackmail them, I got worried. Looking at Luna's descent into madness, I recognize the influence of something. Luna had told me before that some sort of parasite had invaded her mind and turned her crazy, eventually taking over when she became Nightmare Moon (which is a silly name, by the way), and her diary was enough to prove that she was right. Well, it was enough for me. Most psychologist would probably find another reason, like PTSD evolving into violent paranoia of something, but most psychologist don't have the chance of having experienced a 'mind leech' first handedly, like I have.

I was pretty sure that Sombra had somehow infected her with this parasite, and that the King himself had been infected beforehand. Which meant that the source of this madness was located somewhere in the north, in the Crystal Empire's Library. And I had to find it, before anyone else stepped upon something that they wouldn't be able to control. And maybe, maybe, it could help me find a way to get rid of my own mind parasites...

Anyway, back to the story. So, I had read this huge-ass diary in its entirety in two nights, leaving us pretty tired. I went to work on my new plan only an hour before Recto woke up, and I successfully told him to force me out of my mind-cocoon only when our boring real-world lessons would start. Which meant I spent a lot too many hours in company of Kay's hateful and annoying voice, not mentioning the thunder that would sometimes give me little heart attacks.

I hate thunder.

Recto told you of how the morning started. I hate this mockery of a prince that Celestia forced me to follow around. Racist, ignorant, unreasonable, stupid prick. And the list goes on. And the bastard had given me some hopes of having an intellectual conversation with someone else than Twilight for once, until that stupid Count showed me how little ponies in general know about science.

So I was listening to Blueblood and his friend fight over a stupid article when the other bastard talked. I heard his voice as well as I would have if I had been in that horrible ruin of a mind I inhabit. That in itself was horrifying to me: he hadn't been able to talk to me anywhere else than there in years. But the most horrible for me was that Recto heard him too. Recto wasn't even supposed to be able to hear his voice, and he responded to him. So I panicked and immediately tore Recto's connection with the real world, forcing him to revert to his sleeping persona. And I retreated in our mind, effectively passing out. Not that I really cared: as far as I knew, I could have had only a few seconds left to live anyway.

When I arrived, my first thought was to check the seal. It was intact, even against Kay's and the Whispers' best efforts. Then, sure that hell wasn't going to break loose in a second, and mostly ignoring the thunder's roars that were coming from outside, I checked on Recto. Thankfully, he looked alright too. I spent a really long time carefully reconstructing Recto's links with our body, after I made sure to cut off my own and leaving us in a temporary coma. Once I had restored Recto's link, I helped him to wake up and left him on the front, hoping that everything would be alright.

Then, I turned back at the door.

"How. And why."
"What are you asking, Traitor?" Kay's voice answered, making me shiver.
"How did you talk to me outside of this place? You aren't supposed to be able to!"
He snorted. "Father's binds may prevent us from taking over and destroying you and your pet, Traitor, but our power keeps growing. And it is easy to reach you. We are linked together, after all. That thing that you keep at your side probably eared us through you."
"Great, so now I have to create another seal to prevent Recto from earing you while I work on a way to shut you up for good."
"Don't be so cocky, Traitor. You would come to regret it."
"Thanks to Discord's help, you can't win. That's all I need to know for now. I don't have to be afraid of you anymore, Kay. You are just a bug that I will crush under my foot."

Thunder roared more powerful than ever, nearly deafening me as the door was hit by something that felt too immense to be really understood.

D̘̅͆ͪͤ͋̀O͗̄ͧ̐ͯ͢ ̰̥̙͙̤̥̜N̺̻͔̳͇̥ͬ̾̊͑O̿̒ͧͬ̊̊͏̠̹͎̟̖T̂͒ͮ ͗̏̉҉̦U͉̣̖̣̹͖͓͋ͬͦ̍̎̎N̦ͦ̉͘D̤ͧͩ̅ͮ͐͡E̝̰̜̘̹̦̗͒̽̾͒Ṟ͓̤̆̌E͕̖S͚̠͑̾̉̇ͦ̅̀T͖̠̘̞̲̩́͂Iͤ̊͒ͫ̉̃́M͔͍̳͎̳̣ͧA͖̯ͬ͛T̻̮͖̳̖̺̗͘Eͦͭ̄͛ͣͮͦ ͓̣̪͖̾͛̈̊̅̓Ơ̎Ű͍̳̳͋R͓̱̱̩͚͖̕ ̟͇̝̬̄ͨͦ͋͋P̫̪̬̬̤̀̓Ǒ͕͚̝̤̆͂̽̎͟ͅW̰̞͖͍̞̰̭͝Ẹ̢̜̦̙͒ͦR͕̰̤͚͖̀͛͌̆̏͛̀,ͣ͆͑̑̉ͯͨ ̰̗͗͐̕T̢̘̞̞̗̦R̥̪͉͓͈̬͟A̦͎̜͙͖̱ͭ̽͑́͋͊I̜̙͇ͧ̂ͩ̌͛̂T̡̤̯̋ͭ͆ͮͭ̚O̫͔ͭͧ͆̿ͧ̓ͯŔ̹̳̲̩ͪ̎̎.͎ ̦͚̬̐̈́̓̆̍ͤ̏W̶͔̤̠̗͖ͦ̎͗e͕͙̒ͪ ͇̠̝̱ͬ̀̓̀͝w̨̥ͫͦ̒ͮͪ̓i̹̳̗ͭͥͨ̉̒ͧ̑l̷͍͖̚ĺ͋̏ͧ ͍͖̏̊̉͌ͫͨ͐ẇ͔͊̏ͯi̛ͭ̈ñ̬̆͊ ̜̬̰̮̲ͩ̒ͯͭt̺͒͌̚̕h͈ì̟̼̣̮͠s̬̀ ̟̗̩͙̻͊̾ͤ͞w̛̝̙͐a̝͇̝̟̩̠̼͘r͔͔ͥ̚.̖̣̲̰͙͂͜ ̴̞̦̯̭̟͚̺́̃ͣͨ̃Y̍̄̆ͫ̑ͧͣ҉̦̖o̩ͩͧ͝u͂ ̧͂̄͊͌c̥̟̭͉͉̝̞̐̽̅̇͘á͉̯̳̗͍̮̜n̩̪̰̘̠̝̫ ͚̖̭̣̟̀̚ñ͇͓̺̝͒́͒o̞̣̯̯̒ͥtͬ̓̑ ̣̜̌́̔̎̾ͣs͚̹̰̭̙͉͛̔ͩ͊û͍́cͮ̈̔̂̿c̡̺̰̻͇̯̥̼̽e̙̞̳̎̑ͣͣ̚ḙ͚͎̹̱̼̃ͬ͋d̬̂͋̂̉̂ͪ̈.̬̱̐̀̓̑̐ͫ̄

I gulped down and felt tears coming to my eyes, my old terror not so eager to leave me alone, but I soldiered on. I added a few enchanted chains to the door and linked them to me and to the ground. Infused with my power, they would prevent Recto to hear their voices threw me again. It would add another weight to my conscience, but in the end, Recto would be safe from the Whispers, so everything was perfect.

Then, doing my best to just ignore Kay's screams and the Whispers' voices and thunder, I meticulously re-crafted my own links to our body, making sure not to touch at Recto's new ones and possibly infect them somehow. All of it while trying to appear braver than I felt in front of them and keeping myself from crying out of fear or depression. I wasn't as afraid of them as I had been, but fear still lingered in my soul, and Kay and his friends were hurtful, as always.

I took me a lot longer to reconnect myself to our body than I needed to reconnect Recto. Partly because I wasn't as careful when I rebuilt Recto's, and partly because of the differences in our souls, which made mine a heck lot more complex. But in the end, I succeeded.

And it was nearly too late. As soon as my last link to our body formed, I heard Recto's voice crying and looked at him in the bed. My heart nearly stopped. I won't describe how his real world distress looked like from the inside of our mind, because it's... Because I can't. Not to you. Not to anyone. It's the sort of thing that makes me glad that I'm unable to have nightmares. And it sadly wasn't the first time I saw it.

Thankfully, I knew what to do. I ran to the bed and hugged his breaking soul against me. I then stabilized him with my own power and calmed him down. It thankfully hadn't got too far in the process, so I was able to relatively quickly ease him to sleep. I stayed with him for a few seconds in our minds and an instant only in the real world before I took over.

I opened my eyes to see Luna's worried ones. She nearly jumped back when she realized that I was the one who woke up, and I used the few instants of confusion to access Recto's memory and find out just what the hell happened while I was away.

Then, I got angry.

Author's Note

And it is said than on the first day of the third month, he shall come back from the dead! All shall kneel before his glory! Muhahaha!

No, seriously guys, I can't even nderstand how it took me nearly THREE MONTHS to publish this chapter. Well, I did have my exams, my driving license test, my trip to Australia for studies... But it still left me plenty of time I should have used to write this one down and send it to you!
In my excuse, I also blame Smash Bros. Yes, it's pathetic. You may laugh at me now.

So, a heavy chapter, huh? You have pretty much most of my headcanon for the story written in the last part here. I hope I didn't bore you with a quick history lesson.
Now, the part that I'm sure you are all waiting for since I started to include them in the Author's notes: the spoilers!
In the next episode of Screwed Minds : Questions, Gala and more Royalty.
See you soon!