The Center is Missing

Chapter One hundred twenty-five

Quiet

Though it felt like much longer than that. A fledgling spirit between bodies, time and distance were as meaningless to her as sight and speech, and Aureole had no reference for when she woke up, which she did with a painful scream. The Datura couple in the room looked up and witnessed her messy re-entrance into the world, the inflation of new lungs and the churning of new guts, expulsion of fluids, muscles twitching as consciousness grew into them and became accustomed.

“Can you hear me?” the mare asked after a while. “My name is Deepest Blue, you’re safe.”

Aureole looked around and nearly flailed onto the floor. They were on an airship, and she thought for a moment that it had gone wrong. “I fluh-fluh-fell,” she managed.

“Okay,” Deepest Blue said. “Keep talking, that’s a good start.”

“Nuh, I…” She looked around again, mind clearing slowly, memories falling back into order. The airship was different, and her room was like nothing on the Via Luna. The engines didn’t sing, and there was no chaos above.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Saliva was pooling in her mouth and it dribbled out when she tried to sit up, her throat sore and stiff. “Twi—my name.” She swallowed several times. “Aureole is my name.” She slid off the table and fell into a crouch, her legs too weak. Her stomach and intestines groaned and slithered inside her, and her heart was palpitating. “Good to meet you?”

“And my name is Crafted Cask,” the stallion said, setting down his book and going to shake her hoof. “You’re in good hooves here, Aureole.”

“You…” She didn’t know how to ask. “You know what—”

“Lotus told us in exhaustive detail,” Deepest Blue said, rolling her eyes at her partner. “Who you were, where you’re coming from, everything. Our job, in addition to helping you integrate properly, is to stand as your parents.”

* * * * * *

Sunlit Gables, meanwhile, awoke in a basement in Fillydelphia and endured the same uncomfortable processes of coming to life, the same awkward conversation with her stand-in parents, the same flash of fear that something had gone wrong and she was still Rainbow Dash. She thought for a second that Celestia had caught them at the last second and charged into the afterlife to drag their souls back.

She stood, tested her wings, talked a little, stumbled to the bathroom, and when she was back out, she noticed the mirror.

“Go on, get acquainted with yourself,” her new father said. “We’ll both be with you until you start your new job, and we can answer any questions you have.”

“Freaky,” Gables whispered to herself, leaning into the mirror and pulling down an eyelid. No tricks. She was entirely new, built from scratch by Datura magicians and scientists, apparently one of thousands, something routine, another body removed from storage and prepared for someone’s soul. “Why is my fur sticky?”

“We spray the bodies with pesticides and antifungal agents, just so they don’t start to turn before we’re ready to use them,” the Datura mare said. “Do you want to wash up? There’s a shower upstairs. I can help if you’re not comfortable with your balance yet.”

“I’ll do it myself, I think.” They went upstairs and her Datura mother showed her the bathroom, got the water going, and said she would be outside if Gables needed anything. She tried to stand under the warm water, but after slumping into the wall and banging her chin on the faucet, relented and sat. It was still dark out, which felt wrong to Gables; like Aureole, her mind had defaulted to treating the transition as a night’s sleep. She had expected soothing morning light and the chirping of birds, her Datura helpers to be there with orange juice and a hearty breakfast, and for the emergency in Canterlot to be already past. She had expected the world to shout “hello!” but there was none of that, no fanfare.

The following morning, she would eat some buttered toast and keep it down, and, more comfortable in her skin, sit down in front of the TV and watch the aftermath of their escape.

* * * * * *

The Via Luna touched down on a spot on the mountainside where Celestia, as a ball of living fire, cleared the trees and rocks away in a single hot shock wave. The guests filed off onto ground that steamed softly under rainfall that had once again become gentle, and ambulances cried out in the distance, siren lights painting the city below. Dresses were ruined with rainfall, food, soot, blood, and vomit; some of the passengers cried hysterically, some withdrew into nonverbal calm; ponies soaked injured limbs in dirty puddles or tried to get Celestia’s attention while Luna took the worst injured herself, holding them in telekinetic bubbles and flying down to the nearest hospital.

Colgate shivered, too afraid to run into the forest, in the back of the crowd with Versus and Big Mac. A few more seconds would have been too late; Celestia had smashed through the wall before Colgate could step away from Twilight’s edge, and there, her tongue failed her. The mad goddess teleported Colgate to the deck and continued barrelling through the cabins, screaming Twilight’s name and finding nothing; and when they landed and she had gutted the ship, she saw the team of pegasi flying up the mountain to meet her, for Twilight and Rainbow had been found.

And the whole country knew it then.

Everyone present felt the air change and backed away as though fearing another lightning bolt, the princess’ fire cooling for a moment as she drew tight, injured breaths. Luna, returning, had enough time to flick a shield over the crowd.

Celestia’s finery burned away and her fur shone perfect white, her neck bending backwards, and then a spear of light came forth to pierce the clouds and turn night to day, thickening to a pillar and polluted by coals and fireballs that flew up snarling and crimson, gaining height, vibrating with the trees and the windows far below, houses in the deep suburbs shaking with the strength of her anguish. Her wings folded and crumpled tight, the earth shook, but Celestia cried louder and harder. The cinders above her mingled with ash and became lost but for winking red freckles amid volcanic lightning, and those who could were running downhill, and Celestia began to smoke from more than her face. Plumes thick and black as ink billowed off her skin and raced downhill on hot wind, and she was too bright to look at; from a distance, it appeared that Canterlot was erupting, and that was how it felt to those few who were there to witness it up close.

Luna stood beside her sister in fire and swirling ash, eyes closed and face peaceful, trying to reach into Celestia’s mind with calming thoughts. Everyone in Lower Canterlot watched with ears clamped tight and eyes squinted, then turned away and sought something to muffle the sound as Celestia’s rage grew yet more; and in Ponyville, frightened observers filled the roads and climbed onto roofs to watch, many reminded of The Crumbling in all its fearsome abruptness; and in Fillydelphia, where Sunlit Gables sat in the shower, the sound came like rolling thunder, for which she mistook it in the first seconds; and down in Snowdrift, where Versus’ old friends were enjoying a late dinner, it seemed morning had come early and from within the earth, a needle of light out to space so intense and solid that to look directly at it hurt their eyes; and in The Hive, where Queen Chrysalis happened to be outside her fortress to see, Celestia’s light appeared as a white thread in the middle of a broad, yellowing feather of day across the ocean, the cry following ten hours later and so soft that she would not catch it amid palace noise.

Yet the princess became calm before Luna’s shield was overwhelmed and anyone was permanently harmed. Luna stood through sound waves that sanded bark and leaves from the surviving trees and through heat that turned the slopes to creeping black glass and the nearby river to steam in a glowing earthen groove, and she did not remit with the peace she projected into her sister’s brain. Neither of them thought of the ponies trying to get away, many of whom thought that Celestia was possessed and sure that the world was coming to an end, final thoughts of loved ones and of things left undone. When the torrent of smoke stopped and the fire died down, and Celestia reverted to flesh and bone, she bowed her head in shame and tightened to a point of light, which then disappeared so that the goddess could grieve deep in the bowels of the world.

* * * * * *

The fourteenth of November came and Sunlit Gables, mostly comfortable in her new body, flew into a breezy Fillydelphia dawn for her first day on the local weather team. She and her standing parents lived in the house where she had woken up, and she was set up with a bank account and enough money to get started, a birth certificate, all the licensure required to work with weather, and supplies to last her a month.

The news was calling the Via Luna’s crash a national tragedy, and when Gables saw her former face on the TV that night, she had burst into unaccountable tears, which threatened to overtake if she thought too much about what had happened—a mere four days ago. Four days of questions, of adjusting to fine movement in a body slightly different from the one she knew, of needing help with basic things. She left the house for her first workday timidly, not completely back to normal and afraid that ponies would notice.

When afternoon came around and she had finished orientation—one awful moment where she almost signed “Rainbow Dash” as natural as anything—she was feeling better, and went to work pushing and pulling clouds with a small team of pegasi, arranging an overcast day for those downtown and a little drizzle later. They chatted about the crash in Canterlot, the freak squall that had taken down Celestia’s personal airship. For them, it was distant misfortune, and Sunlit Gables had nothing to say about it; she remembered the glazed look in Twilight’s eyes as she activated her amulet, the scalding pain as her former heart was destroyed, and she found herself touching her chest unconsciously as if making sure everything was still there. Those vacant eyes stuck with her longer, after her shift, a glimpse of Twilight she told herself she understood but which she truly did not.

Aureole landed in the dam zone with twenty others from Applewood, most of them displaced from the flood, and went with her new parents to a little hovel between the lake and a hill on the east side. She had neighbors that tried to make friends with her on the first day and insisted on giving her a tour of the village, and she was only able to get alone toward evening after being shown the dam, the dwellings carved like honeycomb into its interior, and the lake that had come with it where huts and cabins were arranged sloppily. She consented to a light dinner with her new parents in a little log cabin on a different hill, and then made her excuses before crossing the grassy dell and walking to an abandoned power line, its dead cables long, black curves disappearing on the hillside. Aureole stood inside the cage of scaffolding with the flowers and the night’s first fireflies, waiting as sunset turned the lake to amber and the grass to sweet-smelling, dark gold.

There was only radio in the dam zone, so Aureole was spared images of her handiwork, though her memories smoldered in every waking and sleeping hour since. She looked into the funnel of twisted beams and insulators and put her hoof on one, thinking of the electricity that had once fed the city, and cast a small spell to jiggle it. Her cloud of thoughts was lost in death, as well as the power that Vanilla Cream had given her long ago. Twilight had lived with both for so long that when, as Aureole, she noticed their absence, she felt empty and weak. The quiet in her mind was not yet comfortable, less so under the power line, where she stood until a waxing moon made soft and cold the cloudless sky. Aureole was still waiting for something terrible to happen, and she was waiting four days later, when, in Canterlot, Celestia returned to the palace and took a seat on her throne, where she dispensed wisdom and condolences to the endless-seeming train of frightened mourners.

While the palace prepared a royal funeral, Luna personally went with a team of doctors and magical healers into Lower Canterlot to repair ponies’ ears and eyes, as well as offer counsel. Celestia formally apologized for her outburst and assured the country that she would not lose control of herself again, and spoke to Twilight’s and Rainbow’s parents later that day, privately sharing in their grief. She produced a glass vial and caught some of her tears, which she gave to Rainbow’s father, who had been uncomfortable asking for it.

Time passed for delegates from around the world to fly into Canterlot, and finally on the twenty-second of December, more than a month later, the city donned black and climbed to the palace. The princesses had commanded a pure, sunny day for the funeral, and cold morning light touched a sea of darkness: in Greater Canterlot, closed stores wore black veils on their faces, banners hung from poles and trees with the deceased ponies’ cutie marks, flags hung at half-mast and bells tolled. Under Celestia’s magic, all white had been effaced from the palace for the day, the royal guards’ armor turned to dull gray along with the stained glass windows and the carpets.

Mourners filled the palace courtyards and spilled across the lowered drawbridge, down the road, half down the mountain and across Greater Canterlot, filling freeways and promenades and parks, no clouds for the pegasi to sit on but every roof that was high enough to get a view of the palace. The most eminent guests seated themselves in Celestia’s small, private garden, where two graves had been dug between magical, never-withering bushes of white hydrangea. The remaining Elements sat in the front, family just behind, and the remaining rows were for visiting royalty. A dragon prince in fuchsia scales sat with head bowed and a silk tie around his mouth, their custom for mourning the dead, no sound to be voiced. Next to him, two minotaur baronesses talked softly behind paper fans, their horns painted and clicking with carved wood passementerie, thick fur robes catching grass and dirt at the hems. With a retinue of six others from their capital mountain, a silver and white griffon chancellor blinked quiet tears onto the grass and rubbed his assistant’s back, an elderly pony who had not been in Equestria for nearly twenty years and had never met the Elements. In the forms of ponies, so as not to cause duress among the citizens, a small group of changeling diplomats looked stoically on through the crowd, their form of grieving, honoring the dead by witnessing them one last time. Not present were Pinkie, who had angrily rejected the funeral invitation and regretted it shortly after, and Vinyl, who could not face the world and instead stayed in bed with a bottle of bourbon.

“We gather today to bid farewell to Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, and Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty.” Celestia in a simple black gown presided between the graves, tall flower arrangements on either side and behind floating wreaths of unlit candles. The garden was located in a corner behind the alchemy tower, and from a second-floor balcony played a quintet of the palace’s most skilled musicians in a repeating dirge which softened the moment Celestia began speaking.

It had taken an hour for the pallbearers to walk the caskets up the road and through the palace, and they rested finally on the grass, closed, dense bouquets of carnation and rose propped on deep cherry finish, and so many other flowers thrown from sidewalks or open windows, silk ribbons drifting, ponies young and old weeping and rending their manes when the caskets passed them by. The roads were thick with it, petals and stems and paper of all colors, messages written on many or spelled out in somber lettering of flowers or card stock in the parks and selvedge. Elderly ponies sat outside their homes and watched the proceedings, fillies and colts were struck still and nervous by the gravity; to anyone who had interacted with Twilight or Rainbow, even in passing, it felt like a piece of the world had been taken away, and to many others it was an almost natural conclusion. “Every time there’s been trouble, that Twilight was involved somehow,” some said, and to these ponies the funeral was a lavish, wasteful display.

“Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash gave their lives for the Gaia, and their passing has affected us all. It is a tragedy from which the world will not soon recover.” Celestia’s voice was steady, enchanted to reach everyone at equal volume, and her eyes were dry. Of the raving grief that had left a hole in the mountain, there was no sign. “I thank you all for joining me today.”

She stepped aside for Luna. “Lives like Twilight Sparkle’s and Rainbow Dash’s do not grace the world but once in a millennium. They were Elements of Harmony, and that is how they will be known in the pages of history, but they rose above that station before the end. They have touched all of our lives in some way, be it as great as repairing a broken country or as small as giving us encouraging words on a bad day. I call to mind now the words of poet Golden Slumbers. ‘Be still, gentle heart, for your toil is at an end. Be not afraid, for you are welcomed home. Be still, trembling heart, for your toil is at an end. Be not unglad, for you now find peace’.” She waited a moment before continuing, and Versus and Colgate joined with Rarity’s sobbing. “These words speak a great truth, which may comfort us now. Twilight and Rainbow are in a place of rest, where we all must go in time. Their work is done, their trials finished.” Both princesses bowed their heads in reflection, and then Luna joined Celestia under the balcony’s shade to allow Octavia a place at the podium.

For the first minute, she looked out at everyone with stony composure, simply taking in the spectacle of everyone gathered, the bereaved eyes that stared back at her, black and gray clothes in a line out the garden gate and on into the city. “Twilight Sparkle was the greatest pony I have ever had the honor to call my friend. From my comparatively brief time with her, I have learned more about friendship than I ever thought possible. Under her leadership, I have seen ponies healed, myself among them, and I have seen strength beyond measure. Twilight Sparkle showed me that friendship and love can move mountains. We have all heard it, but she was one of the rare few who showed it. In our best times, she led us to victory and harmony, and in our worst, she held us together and kept us safe. We relied on her absolutely.”

She adjusted her note cards, not close to tears. “I recall first meeting her here, in Canterlot. I was at the train station, trying to see if I could get home. I felt her strength even then, before I had seen it tested. She looked me in the eyes and I remember thinking, ‘this is someone who will leave her mark on history.’ I had no idea it would be so profound, or so early. Though she was still young, she has done more good than I will if I reach a hundred years. Yes.” She nodded. “A great pony and a great friend. I will miss her and love her every day.”

Octavia bowed and switched with Fluttershy, who looked to Rainbow’s casket and dabbed her eyes.

Voice quivering as much from nervousness as from sorrow, Fluttershy began. “She was my best friend. Rainbow. She was all of ours. Her spirit kept us going when things got tough; when it seemed like hope had faded, Rainbow was there to remind us who we were, to en-encourage us. Sorry.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. Rainbow Dash had the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. She had love for everyone, and not just a little. To each one of us, it felt like Rainbow was there with us, personally, that, um, everything she had to give she was ready to do. I don’t think there was a sacrifice too big for her, if it was for her friends. She stayed with us through the worst days of any of our lives. There were multiple times when it seemed we were walking straight into death, and Rainbow Dash never flinched.” She sighed and dried her eyes again. “And I know, if she was here right now, she’d be embarrassed, she’d probably say this, all this is too sappy for her. I’m sure she would be the first to remind us that life goes on, and that’s certainly something she taught me. Thank you.” She nodded and returned to her seat, and more came up: parents, extended family, Leaf Blower who barely made it through hers, Lumb who had flown in from Hoofington and took ten minutes extolling the virtues of both mares, political and religious figures neither of the deceased had ever met.

Celestia lowered the caskets after the twenty-sixth eulogy and a lengthy nocturne, Rainbow’s and then Twilight’s, and kicked dirt onto their lids. She sobbed at last when the quintet swelled, and attendees all down the mountain broke into wailing, seeing and hearing through magical projection the same as those in the garden. On the other side of the wall, cannoneers fired blanks in salute, and Luna draped banners over the graves once they were filled in.

Into late evening did the reception drag, the throne room refitted as an open dining hall, servers and chefs providing those who remained the very best the palace had to offer. For the first few hours, the Elements kept to the vestibule and thanked everyone who came to them with condolences, but as the crowd thinned and night came on, they were able to get a table and speak in privacy.

“You were great up there, Octavia,” Applejack said. “A born speaker.”

“I wish I could have said more,” Octavia said. She was seated next to Colgate, who had remained pale and silent after mastering her tears at the ceremony.

“Does anyone know…” Rarity began.

“Luna said she’d talk with us later,” Versus said, watching one of the griffons walk past through the corner of her eye. “She’s got the pictures, so we’ll know who to expect.”

“When will that be?” Octavia asked. “Because we might not be there for it. The princess is moving Colgate and I out west. She wants us in a smaller town.”

“Soon?” Fluttershy asked.

“Possibly. I believe so.”

“Won’t that break up the Elements?”

“That is what I asked. She said that ours were made separately from yours.” She made a round gesture with her hooves. “An independent system. There should be no problem in them activating without yours. We are going to test that next week.”

“You’ll need Big Mac,” Rarity said, looking at him, morosely picking at a pimento and celery aspic. He had not met any of their eyes all night, and she realized why in a flash. “Are you… What’s going to happen to you?”

He took a deep drink of iced water. “It was my idea. Ah wrote her an’ asked if we could move.”

“You’re leaving?” Fluttershy gasped, and Applejack nodded sadly at her side.

“Eeyup. Been thinkin’ ‘bout it a while, decided that Ponyville ain’t right fer me no more.” He sniffed and lowered his eyes, and Versus got up to hug him. “Seems Ah’ve come down with a case of the travel bug.”

“You’ll… but…” Rarity’s eyes glistened, and she said in a small voice, “We’ll miss you.”

He looked down at the table and shook his head.

Applejack and Versus stayed in Canterlot for Big Mac to test his Element with Octavia’s and Colgate’s one afternoon in an underground vault, down a trap door in the palace and through a tunnel into the mountain. There, the three friends stood together and rang with light and heat that rattled dust from the vaulted ceiling. He then returned to Ponyville to prepare for departure, ten days had Luna given the three of them.

Winter was dry and cold in Ponyville, and Applejack, who had started looking for a replacement when Big Mac first announced his intentions, found it in Limestone Pie. The other spa pony, Cloudchaser, was preparing to leave as well, and so the spa was closed once more, some citizens still hoping without expectation for Aloe and Lotus to return. After Twilight and Rainbow’s deaths, they had not been seen save by Princess Luna, who—with their consent—erased and replaced their memories of the job.

Big Mac had packed on the day of his decision, but there was still plenty for him to do in his final days. He taught Sweetie Belle everything he knew about the farm’s finances, most of which she had figured out or learned to work around in her time before his return, and he repaired every cart and tool he had been putting off. He went around Ponyville and said goodbye to everyone, endured a speech in his honor, and the final day he spent with his family. They gathered in the dining room after work, and Granny Smith brought out the last apple pie he would have in a while, which she had stuck a couple birthday candles into for ceremony’s sake. They passed the evening with hot apple cider and marshmallows in the fireplace, laughing and playing games, and everyone went to bed early so they could see him off the next morning.

Big Mac hugged his family and the other Elements while the porter packed his luggage, morning frost glistening on the platform’s steel edge. Apple Bloom had made a macaroni replica of the Element of Patience, which he wore onto the train, smiling proudly at the funny looks the other passengers gave him. He got a window seat and waved as they rolled away, and when they were out in the fields toward Lower Canterlot, he lay his head back with a sigh, guiltily excited for the beginning of his next adventure. In his bags, in a book on home medicine that Applejack had given him, pressed between two dog-eared pages along with a leaf from the orchard, was the design for a communication sigil and instructions for its use and maintenance. Once established in Appleloosa, he would set it to his floor and so keep contact with the others—and a second one, separate, for him and Versus, who had made him promise to reach out to her and not let distance defeat him.

They had all come to see Canterlot differently, he reflected as they stopped at another large station in the middle of a sprawling chunk of commercial district. For him, it had always seemed an aloof and fanciful city, but it had gained a touch of home in the last year. He watched through the foggy window, a harried stallion in a chef’s jacket stepping out of line in a coughing fit, a stranger reaching over to pat his back, and smiled.

He got off after a forty-minute crawl up the mountain, his station two blocks from the palace, a walk they had all made so many times that it was second nature. He no longer fancied the pretty mare who sometimes waved to him from the bookstore window or remarked on the circle of friends who frequented the patisserie, sitting outside with coffee and bear claws, always smelling so good. He lugged his bags over the bridge from which he always saw college students studying and playing, past the antique shop with plaster castle walls and a display of vases in the front window, past the park and up the final curving slope to the palace drawbridge.

A tonsured acolyte met Big Mac at the gate and took him through a narrow, high-walled courtyard all the way around to the palace’s north side, where Colgate and Octavia appeared a few minutes later. The airship crew was preparing to take off, the balloon inflating against its ropes, and the young captain came down to greet them all, his gorgeous blue eyes lingering on Big Mac’s well past the initial hoofshake. Neither princess was available to bid them farewell, and he had been told to express their sincerest regrets.

“They picked you up in Appleloosa, right, Mac?” Colgate asked when they were aboard and unpacking. There were only two rooms, so someone had to share, and he hoped he didn’t show his discomfort at the idea of rooming with her.

“Ah was the second one, after Octavia,” he said. “Eeyup, Appleloosa. Ah was there fer family reasons. More’n that, probably.” Saying it, he realized he had never really thought about it, whether the family death that had brought him to Appleloosa in the first place had been designed to guide him into the Elements’ path. “No use worryin’ ‘bout it now,” he said, and Colgate smiled, not sure what he was getting at.

They spent that evening reminiscing, which, with Octavia moody and Colgate restless, did nothing to ease his mind; but the following morning over pale green fields and a meandering river, he could at least look out over the land and feel that he had done right by himself.

In Fillydelphia later that same morning, Sunlit Gables took advantage of the slow workday and flew to a nearby museum, where she met an acquaintance and chatted next to a dark, metal sculpture. “Yeah, boss said we didn’t have anything until three”; “they’re doing great, thanks. No, my littlest still hasn’t found her cutie mark. It’s normal to take this long, right?” And so on. It was nice to talk about nothing, to smile and nod and not have someone demand a meaningful response, to conclude a conversation without having gained an extra problem. Gables walked between triangles of scalped lawn and saw an elevator slide up a groove in the museum’s exterior, and when she went inside and saw that they were featuring an exhibit on the Elements of Harmony and their adventures, she couldn’t resist.

What ponies had gotten from them astonished her. Pieces of their wrecked airships—she couldn’t even remember how many they had gone through—candid photographs, a few shreds of torn clothing or preserved food, along with paintings, drawings, sculptures, a short animation condensing their final fight with Discord in the adjunct room. Their fight with the tornado had been rendered in tapestry and dominated the south wall, an airship angled up to meet the whirling dark cyclone that reached out from a cloud bank like a sinister tentacle, Twilight and Rarity on the prow with twin horns ablaze and Octavia sejant amidships with a look of dour concentration on her face. A row of black marble stands ran from the exhibit’s entrance, each one supporting a little figurine of each of them made from trash, cleaned and wired into shape: “Those Who Fought Him” was the title, and a little sign had been hung on Pinkie’s, “please do not deface.” Many exhibits had accompanying recordings, some of them with the Elements’ own voices lifted from interviews and hearings. Gables pressed a button and heard Rainbow speaking about their efforts in Manehattan, the cable pony and the madness of securing the city’s skyscrapers, and from there turned and walked out. She sat in the food court and reminded herself that she was no longer Rainbow Dash, and that there was no way anyone could connect the two.

That feeling of safety was hard coming for Aureole as well, who, in a town with no real banking system or money-based commerce, found herself less and less sure as her time went on. The ponies there just lived, and it baffled her. She got up whenever she wanted, descended the hill into town, and then could make conversation at the shops that lined up along the main road like targets, maybe barter for some fruit or paper; she could walk where the main road deviated and go through the dam’s echoing penstock to the restaurant where they had developed their deaths, where she could eat for either bits or a day’s labor; she could go the other way, around the lake, and see what the shore ponies were tinkering with; or she could simply go back home and put her head under a pillow, waiting for Celestia to come get her.

It was from that exact nightmare, the same each night, that she had awoken on that day. She stared at herself in the mirror, and, finding no solution there, set off for the shore, where a raggedy team of ponies bickered about air flow and pressure in the ugly contraption wallowing in the icy mud, their latest attempt at a diving vessel. Among them was Vintage, the pony whose vineyard they had stayed at for their time in Trottingham. Aureole thought she looked familiar, but didn’t place the name until that night, settling into bed with a book and then sitting up and smacking her forehead. “Right, her! Duh!”

She had breakfast with her Datura parents the following day and went to the lake shore again, where the team of ponies had shuffled to include a few others that she, as Twilight, had met before—these much more briefly, and whom she did not register as familiar. They argued and drew designs in the mud with sticks, and Aureole dared to use a little more of her magic to help them visualize more complicated concepts, and on the next day, they ventured into the dam to see what mechanical components they could find. Much of the dam had been hollowed and repurposed into something between a shanty town and an apartment complex, but the machines were still there, defunct and jumbled behind walls or heaped into unused or unsafe rooms, which grew more numerous as they went up. Aureole wondered why so few ponies lived in the top half of the dam, and a few days later, searching for a specific and elusive type of valve, she found out.

It took nearly half an hour to calm her down, something she hadn’t thought to expect, an embarrassment that her fellow scavengers told her was no big deal. Lightning had stricken the monstrous tangle of antennae and gantries at the dam’s crown, and it brought Aureole straight back to the Via Luna and Celestia. She apologized profusely to the kindhearted mare who had ushered her into her tiny dining room, brewed tea, and explained that it happened all the time.

They didn’t find the valve that day, but Aureole went back home with a sense of purpose that had been missing since death. It wasn’t anything she could name, but its pull was unquestionable, and after a few more days of inclement weather, the sky cleared and she asked to go to the top, to the strike zone. She said it was about facing her fears when she was questioned, but that wasn’t it; something about the lightning simply attracted her.

For Sunlit Gables, it was the opposite, a new thing she discovered about herself setting up for a thunderstorm in one of the wealthy sections of town. Flying with a team of five others, it was her job to string warning cables between clouds before technicians started building the thunderhead, and she felt revulsion to watch them in their reflective vests. The power and danger that had caught Aureole’s attention seemed gross and excessive to Gables, who understood the necessity but was repelled and not a little afraid.

While the two of them worked back into routine, Ponyville adjusted as it always did, as it had when the Elements had gone and as it had when they returned. They erected a memorial for Twilight and Rainbow in the cemetery, friends got together, businesses moved slowly, and life went on as sadness faded. Ponies began wondering who the new Elements would be, and Rarity and Fluttershy mentioned Aureole and Sunlit Gables, gave them vague pasts with the group, speculated a few other candidates as well to cover their precision. Applejack refused to speak about it, and everyone assumed she was still grieving, which was just as well.

February came around and Princess Luna flew her ship, the Matta, down to Ponyville to tell the Elements that she was going to bring their friends back home. They spoke in Fluttershy’s cottage, the four remaining Elements and a sigil with Octavia, Colgate, and Big Mac drawn on a dinner plate—one of the few in her house without an animal design on it. Due to Gables’ and Aureole’s geographic separation, Luna would collect them one at a time, Gables first. She had not communicated with either, nor had she looked in on them, not wishing to risk being caught acting on information she should not yet have. Celestia, she said, was sorrowing terribly, but also shrewdly.

“How ‘bout their folks?” Applejack asked. “They doin’ okay? Ah haven’t heard from ‘em, an’ Ah don’t wanna pry if they’re not ready.”

“They are recovering,” Luna said. “I believe they think the storm was an accident; they can’t conceive of Twilight causing such a thing deliberately.”

“There’s an unexpected mercy,” Versus said.

“Ah still think she’s a monster,” Applejack said. “Call it a necessary evil, but that don’t take away the ugliness.”

“That is the nature of power,” Luna said, not interested in talking ethics. “I will bring them both back to Ponyville to get acquainted with you and to catch up on whatever stories you’ve told about them. After that, all of you will be invited to Canterlot to welcome the new Elements. Pure ceremony, shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

“Will you want us there as well?” Octavia asked.

“Hm. You’ll receive invitations, but given how long it’ll take you… How long was your airship time, anyway? I regret that I couldn’t accompany you.”

“Around two weeks, princess,” Colgate said. “If we’re gonna be to the welcome party in time, we’d better leave, uh…”

“You would want to leave in a few days.”

“Would it be too much for you to grab us in your speedy Matta?” Octavia hissed at Colgate to be less blunt.

“Or is there a magic window nearby that you can go through?” Fluttershy asked. “Like the one from Snowdrift to Passage Town?”

“You’re not supposed to use those,” Luna said sternly, “or even know about them. Ladies, I will order a ride for you. Appleloosa is too far for me to fly to and delay the ceremony.”

“Anything you can do at all is appreciated, your highness,” Octavia said, bowing even though the sigil only captured her voice.

“I’ll do that. Lastly, does anyone here wish to come with me to find our two wayward Elements?”

Fluttershy volunteered, and later that evening, she and Luna were on their way northwest to Fillydelphia.

The journey took them four days on the Matta, as uncomfortable for Luna as they were for Fluttershy. She had spent so long with Twilight in the palace, always underhoof, researching and causing trouble, asking big questions and pretending to be ready for the answers, but with demure Fluttershy on the ship, Luna had no one to puzzle or amuse her.

When they were zooming over a crooked lake on the third day, their draft pushing a chain of telephone lines below, Fluttershy asked Luna what Twilight had been like at the end, and after several minutes pondering the answer, the princess chose to favor Fluttershy with the plain truth.

“She was dangerous and unrepentant, actually. The pressures of laboring under my sister, and against her, allowed those traits to surface.”

“I had hoped the palace would change her,” Fluttershy sighed. “For the better, I mean. We all thought—most of us thought steady work would let her return to normal.”

“Perhaps it would have. I would not describe Twilight’s employment under my sister as ‘steady’.”

“I miss her, that’s all.”

“Yes.” Luna was in no mood to discuss the impermanence of self and the possibility that pressure had not changed Twilight, but revealed some of her true qualities—that, after all, her friends had only known her a couple years before she changed, and perhaps it was the mollifying effects of friendship in a town that posed no challenges that had made her seem like the mare Fluttershy missed. Or the fact that Twilight’s actions did not nullify her former self, the fact that most likely both versions of her were the true version, and ponies were more complicated than what could be represented in dialogue; there was room in everyone for good and bad and both in astounding measure, and to say that either of those was the “true” face of that pony was reductive. “Look at yourself,” she could have said, “You ruined Pinkie Pie’s life and you’re still the kind one. Don’t be fast to judge.”

They hit Fillydelphia the next afternoon. Sunlit Gables was fresh from a business meeting and heading to lunch with a coworker when the Matta landed on the other side of town. Luna was telling Fluttershy about the precog party in Snowdrift while Gables told her coworker her views on the latest Wonderbolts news. It was too cold to sit outside, so they got a table near a window where they were able to watch pedestrians. In Canterlot, she had grown used to a certain ostentatious fashion, as though everyone wanted to emulate Celestia’s natural flashiness or outdo it in their own way, but very few ponies in Fillydelphia stood out. She still looked at herself in fear that she somehow did, that Rainbow Dash was a curse that could return under the right conditions. Her bright citrus fur felt alien on her skin, like a second outfit that could not be removed, and in every mirror there was a disconnect between self and appearance: normal problems, which her Datura parents told her would vanish with time and experience.

With that peculiar sense of being an imposter came the sense, much happier, that she had won the ultimate lottery. Palace life had been bad, but only in the trials of daily routine had it become manifest to her just how bad, and how bad her relationship with Twilight had become. She blamed herself in part, but realized there was no stopping Twilight when she had set herself to something, and blame often became lamentation.

“But that’s behind me now,” she would think, and so thought in the diner with her coworker. It was easy to forget how good life could be. Months ago, she had been preparing to jump down a yawning black hole with Twilight, and everything had felt at an end, but coming out the other side was more than rebirth.

There was nothing wrong with being ordinary; she could say that having been on the other side of it. A classic diner with no fancy tableware, no expensive drinks, no live music, no intricate architecture, just dirty checkers in the carpet and old coffee, rowdy kids a few tables over, workers who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else, greasy food, warm lighting, tacky prints of still lifes on the walls, and gray winter weather outside with the slither of traffic, a bored city plodding through the motions of nothing special; work for the daily weather and no life-changing thing after that, flying or walking home, her house that looked much nicer next to the neighbor’s with a young cedar pushing up the sidewalk outside, fireflies over the lawn, water-spotted patio furniture, the screen door that stuck and had to be slammed closed every morning when it was still dark enough to see the stars.

Luna knew exactly who she was looking for, but, committed to the farce that she did not, drug Fluttershy around with the Element of Loyalty in a ceramic bowl pointing like a compass to its bearer. After lunch, Gables’ team leader called everyone down for a sudden meeting on the ground, and there Luna stood, not even looking at her. She walked down the line of workers until the Element reacted to Gables, glowed and heated up and melted into the shape of her sun and clouds cutie mark. Everyone cheered and congratulated her, and Fluttershy kept behind the princess, a momentary recognition between her and Gables, who pretended to be amazed.

There was nothing in the employee manual that addressed what happened when a worker was ordained to succeed an Element of Harmony, but Luna wanted Gables to come with her as soon as possible, and there wasn’t much to do about it. Gables went home early, told her false parents that it was time to go, and started packing. How tempting it had been to pack prematurely, that she could just walk out when the time was right, but her parents told her it was foolish; if anyone else saw that she was planning on leaving, it would raise questions. After she got her possessions together, purposefully meager, Luna treated them to an early dinner at the nicest restaurant in town, and under another dome of silence, she told Gables the plan.

“I have to go back to stupid Canterlot?” Gables objected. “For how long?”

“Not long. It’ll be like a smaller version of returning from your quest. Celestia and I will make speeches, you’ll have your names officially entered into the archives, everyone’ll want to shake your hooves. After that, though, you’ll go back to Ponyville… provided no one volunteers to stick around this time.”

“If… can I say her name?”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“Gotcha. And how’s Celestia been?” Gables asked.

“Better,” Luna said. “Not completely, but she’s better. I think losing Twilight will be good for her in the long run.”

“What did she see in Twilight?”

“I don't know,” Luna lied. “I suppose she responded to Twilight’s ambition. A pony like her can do extraordinary things.”

Gables hesitated to ask, not sure how close was too close to showing she knew the truth. “Do you think she might still?” She could tell that the question caught Luna off guard, and Fluttershy gave the princess a worried look.

“There’s a few likely outcomes I envision, and one of them is that, yes. We’ll see when we find her.”

“And after we’re done in Canterlot, we can stay home?”

“After the welcome ceremony.”

“Huh. We didn’t get a ceremony when we… There wasn’t a ceremony when Dash and her friends all got their Elements.”

“Mm, things change.” She sipped her hot tea. “Sorry, that was rude. Celestia wants a ceremony this time because the new Element is replacing someone so close to her. It’s special for her.”

“I feel sorry for Princess Celestia,” Fluttershy said. “Is that crazy?”

“Of all of us, I would be alarmed if you didn’t feel sorry for her. Me, I have no empathy for my sister; she brought this upon herself, and she knew it wouldn’t have ended well.” Luna shook her head and mumbled to herself.

They took off at ten that night, Gables and Fluttershy going down to sleep not long after and leaving Luna to spend the night alone. Another thing she missed about Twilight, the sleepless nights talking through the young mare’s troubles. They had been Luna’s troubles millennia ago, and it was fun for the princess to revisit them in another, as well as a good way of assessing her own wisdom. Part of her hoped that Aureole would arrogantly take up where Twilight had left off, and the power would grow and become interesting again in a few decades.

In Ponyville, the Elements enjoyed a small celebration at Rarity’s when they got notice that Loyalty was on her way, and Applejack spread the word through town. No one there matched Pinkie’s skill, but a few talked about putting together a village-wide party anyway, and Gables landed days later to a haphazard mix of games and food tables spread over the town square, a pair of gramophones blowing conflicting music and everyone having a blast anyway.

For four more days Luna and Fluttershy flew to the dam zone, across the Everfree and south into the cold where the lake grew banks of white ice in the mornings. Aureole, like Gables, did not know that Luna was on her way, and continued working with lightning and diving machinery to pass the time. Though the cloud of thoughts was gone, she was able to piece together information based on what she remembered of her storm magic and set it to paper. On the day the Matta cleared the Everfree’s southern edge, Aureole hoisted herself into a lightweight diving bell that she had helped complete, and, in the middle of the lake with some rowers and a team of operators, prepared to go to the bottom and explore the underwater village. She did not share her diving partner’s nervousness, for if something went wrong, she would simply teleport them out to the hills near her house; none of them knew that her magic was that powerful.

Then, on the fourth day, with the Matta again in ponies’ binoculars, Aureole was on top of the dam watching black clouds float in from the west. No one ever came up with her, so it was there that she conducted research with sigils, testing the properties of electricity and summoning small doses of wind. With her back to the approaching airship, she tried to create a localized cyclone of cold air under a gantry’s arm, and when she failed and turned to go over her notes, she noticed it.

She almost raced down to meet the princess, but realized in the dirty concrete stairwell that Aureole, herself, had no specific reason to be excited about Luna’s arrival, and went back up to her weather and research. The clouds were nearing and she sat on an iron beam, too excited to think, shivering. From the dam’s lofty vantage, she could see Trottingham come under shadow, first the ancient aqueducts crumbling in their mountain cradle, the vineyards and farms, bleached silos, the decaying villa where they had first met the Astra family, its hedge maze turned to wild bowers. So far below her, tiny ponies ran to the airship and received the goddess, and one of them offered to show her the diving bell and the small pile of useless salvage Aureole and her teammate had pulled out of the lakebed.

“I bet you, I bet you I know exactly who it is!” one of the rowers said to Luna when she stated her business in their town.

“Oh yeah, that Aureole, she’s something,” another chimed in, tipping her straw hat. “That’s who you meant, right?”

“It’s gotta be.” The rower lowered his voice. “Strange mare, though. She goes up to the top of the dam a lot. ‘Research’ is all she says. Weird magic, says I.”

“I’d love to meet her,” Luna chuckled, and they both pointed at the dam, so she took wing.

Aureole was removing her sigils and collecting her supplies when Luna flapped up and threw a shield over the superstructure.

“No one should be up here when the sky looks as it does,” Luna reprimanded. “Do you have a death wish, young lady?”

Aureole turned. “I was just packing up my stuff to go below, your highness.” In her mind, she concentrated on the phrase, “not a second one,” and Luna, who curiously peeked in, read it and laughed.

“It’s good to see you again,” Luna whispered, closing for a hug. “Shall we, then?”

“You shielded us from lightning?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to stay for a minute more, if I could. I want to see.”

“As you wish.” Luna sat with her on a concrete pylon, grateful for the opportunity to be alone with Aureole. “Here, take your Element, remember to act surprised and humble when we go down.”

The Element of Magic coruscated and transformed, and heavy rain slammed onto the shield as thunder broke.

“Your friends below tell me you’ve been busy, diving and playing with electricity up here.”

Aureole donned the Element, its shape not so dissimilar from what Twilight’s had been. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful when I get back to Ponyville. I’m developing a code right now so I can write my, uh, more iffy research in that. No threat of someone else casting it.”

“If someone sees you writing in code, they’ll think you’re up to no good.”

“I’ll keep it locked away.”

“Uh-huh. So, tell me, Aureole.” The princess was happy to see her, but Aureole saw something more as well when she turned to face her. “Truly, who is it underneath your skin? Who have I found on this gloomy afternoon?”

Aureole looked into the immortal eyes and then, when she could no longer take it, into the clouds. “I’m still figuring that out.”

“I know a group of ponies that can help you there.” She stood up and lifted a wing, halting them. A second later, lightning reached down and planted a white explosion on her shield, the sound of thunder dampened courteously as well, and Luna’s face contorted in pain. The shield held, and she said after a second, “come on, you’ve had enough. I wouldn’t take a bolt like that for just anyone.”

As they walked to the dam’s edge, Aureole asked Luna whether she felt pain the same way mortals did.

“Why would I not?” Luna returned, and teleported them down to the airship, where Fluttershy was talking with some of the diving team.

They went through the theater of amazement and honor for Aureole’s new Element, and Luna put on her regal face and helped the town congratulate her. As with Gables, the three of them dined lavishly before leaving, Aureole’s possessions on the ship and her goodbyes made, and the storm had passed by the time they were done.

That night, Fluttershy stayed up with Aureole and told her about Ponyville, how it had changed and how it had not, how her friends were doing and how the Appleloosa trio was settling in. She described the royal funeral and the uncomfortable weeks following, then the disquieted return to normal life. That was the first night, and for the other three, Aureole slept as a normal mare would, anxious for meeting Celestia. Gables had not thought to wonder, but Aureole did: suppose Celestia reached in and read either of their minds deeply enough to find the truth. Luna told her that it was not in Celestia’s nature to go that far into a pony’s mind, but Aureole still worried.

“Your highness,” Aureole said on the final night. They were to land in Ponyville in around forty minutes, near quarter after eleven.

Luna didn’t take her eyes from their course, but with a wing gestured for Aureole to speak.

“This might sound silly, but I was wondering if you could drop me off near here. I want to walk the last of it on my own.”

“What a strange request.”

“Look into my mind, see if I’m hiding anything.”

At this, Luna turned and faced her. “Mind reading isn’t something to be spoken of lightly, less so actually done. It is a power used for ill much more easily than for good, and it bothers me that you seem not to respect that. Also, Aureole, dear.” Her horn did not glow, but a chill crept onto the deck and the starlight dimmed. Luna continued, voice tired and face creased suddenly with humorless age. “You do not order me to do anything.”

“I-I wasn’t ordering—”

“You do not order me to do anything,” she repeated patiently, and the cold grew; Aureole could not look away from Luna’s eyes, not that time, but she could see rinds of frost forming on the bow gunwales.

“You’re right, your highness. My apologies.” Her visible breath rose in fast puffs.

“Repeat what I said.” The frost was thickening to milky ice and the air stung, and the starlight was reduced to nothing, and Luna’s eyes were new moons staring at her.

“I… I-I do not order you to do anything, ever, your highness.”

“You have been given something that very few in this world have. Do not squander it stupidly.”

The shivering was too much, and Aureole fell to her knees with head bowed to the deck’s icy surface—and then, in a moment, it was lifted, the light and warmth returned.

Luna favored her with a smile then. “Just so you don’t get cocky, dear.” She spun the wheel dramatically. “I can set you down early if you like. You wish to walk a path of solitude to your home, yes? Something meditative?”

“Something like that, yes please, your highness.”

“No problem, my mortal friend.”

She landed the Matta in a clearing by the river and looked Aureole over as she lowered the way to the ground. Fluttershy came up, thinking they had reached Ponyville. “Is something wrong?”

“I asked to land early,” Aureole said, “that’s all. I wanted to walk the rest of the way.”

“Oh. Let me get my stuff, I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Aureole didn’t hear her response as she disappeared into the cavernous ship, and five minutes later, Fluttershy was by her side on the moist grass, and the two of them bowed to Luna.

“Thank you, princess,” Aureole said as the engines quickened, and the Matta’s black balloon soughed against tree branches.

“I’ll see you in Canterlot. Good luck.” She waved and they bowed again, and the long, dark airship merged with the night and was gone.

“You don’t want to make a scene of getting back?” Fluttershy asked.

“That too,” Aureole said, taking a step to the river, smelling the moss and wet leaves, hearing the unnatural silence near them and frogs singing on the farther bank. In her time, seeing a river’s water stagnant and filthy had become normal, but when the land was mended, she had not taken the time to appreciate what had been returned. The flow of cool water over smooth stone was enough to bring her nearly to tears, and she sat on a mound of earth to watch for a time, her friend standing quietly by. The frogs started again, one by one, and the river caught shards of moonlight, and Aureole did not feel proud then for her previous life’s work, but very small.

“Let’s go,” she sighed, standing. They passed through thinning trees onto a dirt path beaten by hoof and wheel, grass and clover abundant on the sides and between ruts. Ponyville’s wan light shone not far off, past a depression and around a bend where the river split to feed a small pond.

“Maybe also,” Aureole continued, stopping to put an affectionate hoof on a post looped with baling wire. “Maybe also because I want one last little… thing, little bit of work, of effort, between me and home.”

Fluttershy fluffed her wings and shivered. “You hate not having a challenge to overcome, don’t you?”

“Yes. I thought I might welcome the peace when… at first. After everything.”

“Hmm.”

She lowered her voice further, afraid even in the dark and damp that someone might be listening. “I thought I went back to Canterlot out of bitterness toward Pinkie—that was part of it, a large part maybe. To spit in her face, you know, show her she couldn’t get the moral high ground on me. I didn’t have to stay there.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should just enjoy this walk, then.” She perked up her ears. “Can you hear that? I think there’s bats nearby.”

They followed the path around a large, open field, across which glowed the sheer light of a tiny train station, and Aureole paused. Memories of the train stations up to Snowdrift, huddled in a car stinking of chemicals and howling through the mountains, the black pine forest ripping by outside. A worker’s shape blinked through the white light and they walked on, through another copse of trees, through a wooden gate and past the dusty river rock that held it open.

“I remember we thought, for a few days there, that we’d go to Canterlot and talk to Princess Celestia, and everything would be sorted out. Maybe we’d have to do some traveling, for like a month,” Fluttershy said. “We helped build that house for Dr. Whooves and he skipped town before we finished. Everyone was so mad.”

“I remember that,” Aureole chuckled. “Aloe and Lotus were there then, they were pissed. And then they left too. How weird that all was.”

“Flying to Manehattan.”

“Landing in Manehattan. The bridge, remember that? And dumb, stubborn Octavia.”

“That’s right! She hurt herself and didn’t tell us. Oh, I could’ve kicked her,” Fluttershy said. “I think Manehattan was about when we started to realize.”

“That sounds accurate.” They turned from the path and pushed through a line of shrubs to the pond, and there sat again, putting down their saddlebags and watching the water ripple with the wind and with the gentle touch of life.

“Remember the coast?” Fluttershy asked. “We got to see the cloud factory, that was really neat.”

“That was pretty cool,” Aureole said. “The rest of the coast was awful, but that part was nice.”

“You—when Twilight dispelled that illusion of Discord. Do you… um, how… did we tell you about that?”

Aureole laughed. “I didn’t hear about that. What happened?”

Blushing at her mistaken phrasing, Fluttershy explained what Aureole remembered well. “She was a great pony,” she concluded. “Every time we fought with Discord, she would take the lead. It was second nature to her. Um, I always thought that was amazing.”

“She sounds like something else,” Aureole said softly, willing her voice not to catch. “I hope I can emulate her.”

“I believe in you.” Aureole supposed she should look over and acknowledge the warm smile she knew Fluttershy would be wearing, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Her chest was tight when they started uphill, and before long, they were crossing the tiny, stone bridge immediately south of town. No one had their lights on save for the hospital, and by that she could make out the schoolhouse and the library on one side, the dark sea of denuded branches in the orchard opposite. Between those the pair walked the hoofpath and stopped at an intersection.

Six hundred seventy-nine days ago, and at about the same time of night, they had been summoned to Canterlot on urgent business. Aureole remembered the feeling of nervous curiosity when she read Celestia’s curt letter, running into the streets while Spike set up her hot air balloon, waking her friends and explaining the same thing over and over, that she didn’t know what was wrong but they were needed. Thatched roofs diminishing and Spike waving goodbye, sleep rubbed out of eyes. That warm, spring night when one page turned over and they were given new lives. Not the wisest of them could have prepared.

“You can stay with me if you want,” Fluttershy said. “Or if anyone else wants you to stay over, I won’t be offended.”

Aureole glanced at her. “Yours is fine. It’s just weird.”

“I know.” She trotted past toward the middle of town.

“Your cottage is the other way, Fluttershy.”

“We’re getting everyone together.” No argument in her voice. “We agreed before Luna got you, we wanted to meet you, no matter the time.”

“Oh. Well…” She followed Fluttershy, heart warming a touch. They got Versus first, her stumpy house in the middle of the field west of the town square, tapping her bedroom window so as not to wake her roommate. Her mauve face flashed up angrily but brightened when she saw who it was, and she climbed through the window and flopped into a bare rectangle of soil where, come spring, she would attempt a patch of sunflowers. The three mares chatted softly and strolled to Rarity’s, north along one of the wider roads, past a small sign that Rarity had made herself: “here is where Carousel Boutique The First dove off the edge of the world, don’t forget!” Rarity was alert when she answered the door, and she ducked inside to turn off her bedside lamp before joining them to walk for near a half hour before finding Sunlit Gables, who had not yet built a proper home in the clouds, and who Fluttershy found drifting over the former site of Ponyville’s windmill on the south side of town. Applejack was last, the only one Aureole did not want to see.

Limestone Pie got to the door first and looked at them incuriously before Applejack came and dismissed her. She looked Aureole up and down and said, “Good to see ya.”

“And you,” Aureole said. They crossed the orchard and the rolling field to Fluttershy’s and crowded into the living room, Applejack hooking herself into the lights and playing with them until finding a brightness level she liked, Fluttershy putting on a kettle of tea and Gables rooting around her mini fridge.

“Welcome home, dear,” Rarity said, touching Aureole’s shoulder. “How are you?” The solemn effect was lessened somewhat when she accepted a bottle of cherry soda and snapped it open, popping her lips around it quickly to catch the fizz.

They stayed in the cottage until midmorning, talking about everything, drinking soda and tea and coffee when Applejack hiked back to the farm and got her machine. Aureole apologized around three, and face-to-face, no one could throw it back at her, despite the suspicious perfection of her timing. The apologies went around and spoken forgiveness flowed, the mood became jolly and then serious again, and the dark, intimate hours moved without interruption or emergency; Aureole did not have to worry about someone appearing at the door, or suddenly realizing a flaw in her latest plan and rushing off to research something obscure. Her magic rested, she was under no enchantments and not burdened by any self-analyzing information. Nothing relied on her anymore, and she was herself at last, mortal flesh and blood on Fluttershy’s wooly carpet, weeping here and laughing there, remembering and praising, triumphant and safe.

-three months later-

Upstairs in the failing afternoon light, Celestia contemplated her own ageless reflection in the window that spanned the room’s perimeter. Her untoward reaction on the mountainside had put fear into her, calling into question what else might incite such a destructive response. It reminded her of Discord’s dream, the heedless outflow of magic and the shame that followed.

Luna appeared in the reflection and waited for Celestia to turn around. “You shouldn’t torture yourself up here.”

“I’m not. I’m not, sister. What’s done is done. I’ve moved on.”

“You’ve been moping since the funeral.” She crossed the empty office and melted through the glass, and Celestia joined her, flying alongside Luna into pink and orange clouds, up into the sheer sky until the palace was an ornamental candle on the mountain, until the air was thin and ice formed on their fur and wingtips. Such flights always cheered Celestia up; sometimes she and Luna would race to the atmosphere’s outer limit, see who could make a bigger fire tail upon reentry, or sometimes they would hang over the world and bask in its enormity.

“I wish I hadn’t crushed Twilight,” Celestia said, resting on a cushion of her own magic.

“There will be another sooner or later,” Luna returned. “Why did you feel so strongly for her?”

“I think she genuinely had a shot at divinity. But…” Celestia looked askance at her sister. “I didn’t like the path she was choosing, so I intervened.” Luna didn’t look away, and Celestia eventually said, “She slighted me and I clamped down on her in anger. I know, it’s foolish. I let her get to me.”

“She wouldn’t have done anything to you.”

“In time I think she would have. But, as I said, what’s done is done. The new ones are here, but it doesn’t look like we’ll need them anytime soon.” She slid back into the air and the two princesses flew in silence, Luna circling the sky over to nighttime mid-flight somewhere over the Everfree Forest.

Octavia had been putting it off since landing in Appleloosa, but she was finally out of excuses. She lived with another Datura, the two of them working on logistics for the smattering of operatives in town. Hers was no glamorous job: she purchased train tickets, set up lodging, contacted professionals and covered fees, figured out schedules and maps, anything to streamline other Daturas’ jobs. In the western town, she was told that nothing became too complicated, that there were only so many ponies to work with, only so much red tape.

It suited her perfectly, and she lived in her pink and white house with ugly magenta columns under the pretense of retirement, the musician who had flashed in the pan and then retreated to solitude. Sometimes she would play piano at the saloon, but otherwise, she did not touch her given talent. When asked, which she was frequently, she would reply that she possessed technical skill but no creativity, and that was usually sufficient. More completely, the truth was that her music was one of many pieces she had left behind, one of many fragments of an old, diseased character she had let go into the depths of the Equestrian wilderness.

In the middle of the afternoon near the end of May, when flowers had appeared once more on dark graves and the sky became sere, limitless blue, she went alone to the Appleloosa cemetery and walked among the headstones, where she eventually found Trixie, and there she crouched and scratched a hoof through the dry earth.

Doubt and sorrow had made it easy to prolong checking, but to see her there at last, Octavia had no tears to shed. Trixie, too, was part of that old life, consigned to dust and blown away. They had been in Hoofington when the news came, and it was then that Rainbow took it worse than them all, but when the city was behind them and Octavia had bottled the worst of herself once more, Trixie had gone in with it. She became a memory to pull out whenever Octavia was feeling sorry for herself or a name to invoke when she wanted to pity her youth.

From what she understood, Trixie had not been long in town before passing away, but her headstone suggested otherwise. It brought a smile to Octavia’s face, thinking that her old friend had left such an impression on ponies in so short a time: dark and light granite marbled together, a rough and asymmetrical top and the bold image of a prancing deer cut into the stone, bob tail with slits of fur texture, tiny eyes sharp and wild, the shape of a forest behind as though the deer were escaping the name and dates chiseled into the trees’ uniform mass.

She bowed her head and smelled the ground, then lay down with her face in the headstone’s shadow. “Good,” she thought simply, and it was good; she had friends in town, time to herself, a therapist whose advice she was coming to trust, and steady work. Seeing Trixie’s grave stirred her melancholy only a little, for the wound had closed long ago. She fell asleep in the hot sun and then woke up with a snort a few hours later, face dirty and sticky with sweat, ants itching in her fur. She rose and shook herself and looked to town, then to Trixie, then to town again; and bidding her goodbye thus with a halfhearted salute and a yawn, Octavia returned to the living.

Colgate’s work took place in the night most often, or the very early morning. She was one of the Daturas that Octavia supported, her job to go wherever her superior, the drawling, pipe smoking mare who ran the hardware store, sent her, investigating magical curiosities. Much of her work was not in the town itself, but out in the vast desert surrounding it.

She took the midnight train with a couple other ponies who had gotten on earlier and were still there when she got off, rolling north into the huge and silent land. The stallion at the station window wished her a good evening as she dragged her bag over and fished through it for the paper she was to show him, which he examined for a minute before telling her to head up the tracks for about a mile and turn east when she saw the jacarandas. She thanked him and hopped onto the railroad ties, inhaling the diesel smell and the dust.

Appleloosa had seemed a reluctant home at first, but once she had her house and bank account set up, things fell into place. Her new coworkers had her and Octavia over for tea and jam cake, and after that, a tour of the town; she saw the sheriff’s office, the tobacco store, the farms, the train stations, the monument to the Elements, the chapel. Octavia had asked whether someone named Reverend Green was in town, and the Datura told her that he had not been there for a very long time.

Colgate could walk across Appleloosa in a couple hours and circle it in a day, and this more than the hospitality of its citizens eased her anxious mind. She might join a pair of orchard workers for a picnic on the flat rock overlooking a set of southward-bending tracks, but for the casual laughter and easy lounging, collard greens and zucchini fritters and candied pear from the sweet shop down the road, the sprig of hay clenched in his teeth or the straw hat his friend couldn’t keep from sliding down over his eyes, the frayed overalls and the smell of fresh earth and fertilizer, Colgate took comfort most from simply being able to see everything in a look or two. Of underground Datura bunkers, she was certain there were a few, and she knew there would always be someone in Canterlot who could look at her on a whim, but Appleloosa nonetheless felt safer. She was on the western edge of civilization, a couple days’ train ride from anything: the battered cliffs and hills to the north, where the coast crumbled into serried fjords and inlets; Manehattan to the east, and its prized passage north which was finally coming alive once more with trade ships from The Hive; and faceless desert to the south and the west, with Snowdrift eventually at the end of one and the griffon lands eventually at the other.

From the tracks Colgate could see a row of sheds huddled on a down-sloping canal shoulder, dry grass pushed up at their bases and light as the wind that had amassed it. She had been told that they were abandoned, but Colgate went to them anyway, twenty minutes from the tracks, twenty minutes just her and the thorny weeds and the brittlebush. When she reached the first shed and poked her head through the opening, resting one hoof against the corrugated metal wall, she let out a contented sigh.

There was nothing to see but the opening on the other side, through that the shape of a collapsed lean-to and a rusted metal barrel. She kicked the dead grass and a floor of leftover hay, walked through the shed, and circled back to her train tracks, north to her night’s labor.

Cousin Braeburn had been busy while the Elements were out and about, and much to Big Mac’s surprise, was able to offer him a job the same day he arrived. Two jobs, in fact: Big Mac could work the apple orchards if he wanted, or he could work on one of the trains that had come under his cousin’s management. “Might as well try somethin’ new,” he said, shaking Braeburn’s hoof.

He started with a team of brakeponies and learned how to throw switches, couple and uncouple cars, and work the hoof brakes, riding the tar black Iron Thunder from the heat and dust of Appleloosa all the way down through desert and pine forest to Snowdrift with swaying loads of apples and lumber. He helped unload giant palettes in the snow, made sure the appropriate train cars were disconnected and switched for new ones, checked car identification numbers on a clipboard. It was in the middle of February when he made his first trip, when Snowdrift was beset with a blizzard; the engineer joked and told him he was going to freeze his teeth off, and Big Mac laughed and said he wasn’t scared of the cold.

Though he missed his friends and enjoyed talking with them through his sigil, he came also to appreciate the time on the train with the other brakeponies. They had known him by reputation, of course, but it hadn’t taken long for that to wear off, for him to become a simple worker in their eyes. He liked his uniform of black and white striped trousers and shirt, with the maroon overcoat and gray ushanka when they got into the southern weather; he liked the constant noise of the locomotive, not at all similar to the airship; he liked the changing views and being able to stand at the caboose and lean out to watch mountains and villages go by with the wind in his mane, his thick, circular goggles sticking to his face and leaving racoon rings around his eyes when he took them off; he enjoyed learning train slang and the talk of mechanical things, and also the company of other ponies for whom wandering had become a way of life. It was nice to get a list of what they were hauling to Snowdrift on the first of every month and to know that he would soon be taking off again. Pleasant anticipation would build in him and show in his voice, which Versus pointed out one evening, laughing with him. She always told him to give her old friends her greetings when he went south, though he never had the time to go off and find them.

For Vinyl it was a scary night not long after the royal funeral, when she tried to take the garbage out and fell down her apartment stairs. It was ten-thirty and no one saw her tumble and crawl back up, head spinning and knees raw, a tooth chipped and throbbing weirdly with a swollen, bleeding tongue. She got herself a glass of tap water and tried to eat some chips to sober up, the salt burning her wounds, and there she fell asleep on the couch to wake up ten hours later with a mouth dry and tacky with blood, eyes gummy, mane bent and caught in her goggles’ straps, and muscles tight and cramped. She fell to the floor and drank the water she had poured the night before, then threw up, then drank more water and threw up again.

Colgate and Octavia were still in town at that time, but she could not face them, and so did what she considered the next best thing: she took a gulp of whiskey to steady her nerves and poured the rest out, then the wine, then the imported gin that she had received as a gift from the princess—over the sink she stood, smelling juniper and mint vapors rising from the drain, and in weakness bent to lick the stainless steel after the bottle was empty.

The rest of that day she spent on the couch attempting to write music in her notebook, mind too foggy with anger and self-reproach. How, she asked herself, had she backslid so badly? She blamed Twilight for most of the day, but when night fell and she had thrown her notebook across the room in powerless rage, she knew there was only one culprit. She called up her producer to let him know she would be taking time off, then called a drinking buddy and asked for a ride to the hospital.

By May, she was able to celebrate a whole month sober, which did not feel like much of an accomplishment to her, not when she still battled temptation every day. In that time she had faced Twilight and Rainbow’s deaths and the disgrace of not making their funeral, but was left with the pent up frustration. Her counselor told her there was nothing wrong with admitting she didn’t like someone, but that didn’t help either; she felt manipulated and used up, like she had been part of someone’s greater plan the whole time, and those feelings that she could not drink away became a part of her music instead, which did help.

A couple of the Elements had reached out to her while she was starting rehab, and one afternoon she sat down and looked their letters over, debating whether to reply. Recalling her time with them brought more bitterness than joy, shame that she had come so far only to fail and shame for her Element, the beetle-black quaver that Celestia had destroyed in a disappointingly tame burst of molten magic.

However, after an hour of staring at the letters, Vinyl decided that the Elements were still her friends, and at the very least she owed them an explanation and an apology for her silence. She put the quill to the paper and scratched out her salutation, and her fur was warm in the sun, and a happy song played on the radio in the corner.

Pinkie ran with her floral-patterned apron covered in flour and powdered sugar to the throne room, where Chrysalis showed her the official letter stating that she was welcome to return to Equestria immediately. When Pinkie read and reread it, her only response was a milquetoast “huh.”

“I shall prepare an airship for you, pink one, and assign my best captain to escort you home. I so would go myself, but I do not think your princesses would appreciate me visiting their waters so soon after our agreement.”

Pinkie read the letter a third time, asking herself what was in Equestria for her. No friends, no family, no prospects, but in The Hive, she had gotten a job in the queen’s kitchen. She had made friends with a team of drones there and was slowly learning their language, though she lacked the physical attributes required to speak it; and most of all, she was, quite simply, happy.

She thought back, already knowing what she would tell the queen who waited patiently for a response, and affirmed to herself that her months in The Hive had been the best in recent memory. Free from the diplomats and their hotel, she was able to fall in love with the colorful culture, the food and the music, the clothing that seemed to breathe with life in every movement, the heat and the smell of flowers, the ocean that she could see from a balcony on the volcano’s rim and the blood red sunsets that came with it.

“Do I have to go back?” she asked.

Chrysalis clicked in thought. “I would imagine the ultimate choice is yours.”

“If it’s all the same to everyone, I think I’d like to stay here. Oh! That is, if you’ll have me, your highness.”

“I will,” Chrysalis said, hiding her pleasure at the idea. Pinkie had fit into the royal kitchen perfectly, showing the drones how to make native Equestrian desserts and learning the changelings’; and what was more, her infectious personality could be felt all throughout the palace. At last, Chrysalis saw why Celestia had seen fit to send Pinkie up to them, for once she was feeling herself again, the kitchens rang with song and the desserts were extra delicious, not to mention the wellspring of positive emotions for them to feed on.

“Mmm, yup, I think I’ll just stay with you all,” Pinkie giggled. “Little Pinkie in The Hive! Who’d’ve thunk? Do I need to sign anything to let ‘em know not to expect me?”

Rarity was in one of the nicer sections of Lower Canterlot as a celebrity judge on Baker’s Dozen, a popular competition show. For days she sampled sweets and tried to make intelligent commentary with the other, actually qualified, judges, and she got to reveal who had been eliminated a few times, feeling terrible when one mare cried.

She was heading back to her hotel after a tiring day of filming when a familiar voice called her name from across the street. Lotus was there, waving and wearing a smile that Rarity did not trust, but pretended to as she jaywalked over to meet her. Lotus simpered and bowed and asked Rarity to come with her, if she was free, to catch up, and Rarity agreed to after a moment of indecision. The two caught a cab to a different hotel, picked up Aloe, and then went a quarter of the way up the mountain to a teahouse between the road’s shoulder and the dense forest.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” Rarity said when they were seated at their small, low table. Through a circular window she could see the shiny edge of Celestia’s crater, glass that had been eroded to razor sharpness at the fringes, strictly off limits to the public.

“It’s my treat today,” Lotus said.

Rarity tried to hide her misgiving, thanking her and looking intently at the menu.

“I’ve been thinking about our time in Snowdrift, Rarity; it’s been bothering me lately. I don’t feel we separated on very good terms.”

“Oh, hm. Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve been allowed to let my cloud lie dormant again,” Lotus said, “for the first time since The Crumbling. I feel like a new mare, frankly, like I’ve come up for air after years underwater.”

“And me too,” Aloe said, patting Lotus on the shoulder. “You spent some time with Twilight, you know how a cloud weighs on the spirit. My condolences, by the way.”

Rarity examined the small teacup on its saucer, the white porcelain with a blue crane taking flight on one side, on the other a tree with roots spiraling outwards. “I’m afraid I wasn’t witness to much cloud activity, myself. I heard things, though.”

“Regardless, I apologize,” Lotus said. “For being short with everyone, particularly you.” She sighed. “Yes, that’s bothered me for some time now. I genuinely valued your friendship, Rarity, when I had it.”

The waiter came and served their teas, and everyone sipped slowly and politely, and Aloe first broke the silence to talk about hers. Lotus joined in, then Rarity, stiff but warming as their cups were refilled, the scents of hibiscus and dandelion and chamomile unfolding, a guslar’s song muffled in a private room, golden sunset behind trees. There was not much to forgive, when she looked back on it, just some rudeness—“And living a lie, well, now I know what it’s like,” she thought.

They talked about other teas they had had, and the twins said they planned to return to Ponyville and reopen the spa sometime in the summer, and Rarity told them about the managers it had passed through in their absence. They laughed and joked about the industry, the foibles of Limestone and Cloudchaser, one who liked to eat the cucumber slices when they were removed from a pony’s face, one who breathed strangely loudly when giving massages, the erratic hours and inconsistent prices.

They didn’t circle back to Lotus’ apology, but it did not seem to Rarity that she needed to announce her forgiveness when they left the teahouse, laughing and planning their next outing.

Fluttershy ventured into the Everfree Forest from time to time to clear her head and realign her soul, Applejack’s denunciation of her cruelty having shaken her more permanently than it had at first seemed. She would walk into the trees with only the most meager of excuses and goodbyes, no promise of when she would be back, and try to find someplace unfamiliar.

Being close to nature gave her the strength to face her friends, something that occasionally became difficult. She took succor from the gnarled trees, loamy ground, clutching roots, leaves that swirled and birds that chattered, reeds growing at water’s edge, pollen in the air that turned to spun gold in the mornings and evenings. When night came, she would scratch a trough in the ground and curl up for sleep, never worried about beasts or wild magic, though she had encountered and run from both.

She focused on the smallest things she could find, an ant’s labor with a seed or the texture of a rock in her hooves, her mind clearing in those times. To watch a dragonfly sun its wings on a cattail or spot an ibis through a clearing, her ego would wash away temporarily, and when it came back, she could examine herself. Then, when the same feeling that had sent her into the forest told her to leave, she would clear whatever evidence of herself she could find and hike back to Ponyville. She would go to her cottage and thank the pony who watched her animals, pay him and send him on his way, and then she would clean up before visiting whoever was free at the moment.

That was the best part of going into the forest, coming back to friends who were happy to see her. Everyone knew, generally, why Fluttershy disappeared, and they knew not to ask her too much about it, usually a casual “how was it?” over food, and this Fluttershy was happy to oblige with an equally casual “just fine.” No more was asked and no more was offered.

Versus tallied her cards, her score inching closer to losing her the game and thirty bits, and tried to figure out her mistake. She and three other players—of a loose group of nine—were gathered in Allie Way’s house, which was across the road from Versus’, at the dining room table. In the living room, placed prominently, Versus could see her bowling trophies, over them a picture of Allie and her teammates posed around a giant, novelty bowling pin, grinning madly with medals around their necks.

Allie reminded Versus a little of her sister, who had flown from Manehattan for a week after the funeral. The first few days were nice, but a week was too long for both of them, neither sister having gone to any particular effort to keep in touch in their adult lives. It was nice to be near someone similar but absent the familial baggage, and it seemed that Allie liked Versus just as well. They had gotten along from the first, and when Allie invited Versus to join their game nights, she was happy to oblige.

Berry Punch and Carrot Top were the others, colorful mares who had told Versus everything she could possibly want to know about Ponyville in exchange for everything Versus could say about Snowdrift. She was amazed to discover that most folks in Ponyville thought of Snowdrift as a cursed place, and was happy to dispel the myth.

“They say monsters come out of the gateway there,” Carrot Top had said once, eyes questioning. “Huh?”

“Once or twice,” Versus had replied. “I never got to see any, unfortunately. They’ve got ponies who know how to deal with that down there.”

“Must be a tough town. Can you imagine, Allie?”

“Tough indeed,” Allie had replied, feeling strange, knowing Versus was aware of the Datura and wondering whether there was anything to telling her that she was one of them.

On that beautiful spring day, though, such concerns were far from her mind. The mood was light and the snacks were plentiful, and Berry had brought a bottle of elderberry wine from Canterlot, which she promised was much better than what its tacky label suggested. “Twilight Mysteries,” it was called, the words “forbidden indulgence” in florid cursive underneath Twilight Sparkle’s face, half in shadow with a knowing, almost unkind gleam in its eye. When they finally opened it, Berry proposed a toast to Twilight’s memory.

“You knew her only a little bit, Vee?” Carrot Top asked.

“Heh, that’s debatable,” Versus said. “Her friends told me she was different before I found ‘em. Guess I’ll never know.”

“She was always nice when I interacted with her.”

“Do you want me to shuffle, Carrot?” Allie asked, taking the cards from Carrot Top’s fumbling hooves.

Even her voice was similar, Versus thought. “Guess family’s where you find it.” She had been nervous about leaving Snowdrift up to the point of landing in Ponyville, and then she had met her friends and found that there were several others just like them in town. Ponyville was a place of simple pleasures and little victories, where a new face was about as exciting as it got and where she could spend all day walking from one end of town to the other, stopping to talk with pretty much anyone.

Doubt came and went for months after the lightning strike, and Applejack always thought that she had arrived at her true conclusion, and every time she would decide she was wrong. One of Princess Luna’s questions refused answering, constantly popping up and nettling her: “Is it right for you to deny her that for your peace of mind?” Twilight’s death and Aureole’s life, a terrible tragedy but orchestrated for very good reasons—right?

Her council to the grief-stricken citizens of Ponyville was that life went on and it was silly to waste it on undue sadness, no matter how dear the loss may feel in the moment. She kept her advice at that level, not deep and not particularly helpful for those who had been more seriously affected, those who thought of Twilight as a distant friend or a role model. For them, Applejack was ashamed with herself, and she wondered what she had done to deserve her burden, which she would contemplate out in the fields. Like Big Mac before her, she kept her worries and doubts inside, only feeling free to explore them in the solitude of the outdoors.

What she deserved, what anyone deserved, had nothing to do with it, she kept telling herself. What was done was done, and her personal goodness or badness would not have changed the facts a whit: the solid reality was that someone she used to call her best friend had committed a horrible act and then come back home better off for it.

In those times of self-doubt, though, Applejack could not bring herself to hate Aureole. She had wanted to confront her when she got back, right outside the farmhouse without even the chance for a welcome hug; she had wanted to poke the new pony right in the chest and announce that she did not, and would not, and should not, forgive her. Yet she was not sure, and the longer she went without saying anything, the more time she spent in the blustery orchard with the fresh ground underneath her and the smell of flowers in the air, and the drone of bees, and the stiff resistance of the cart, and the slither of a garden hose through her wet hooves, and the musty cellar smell, and the sunlight that made their jams and jellies glow from within, and the life that persisted in the farmhouse in the face of heartbreak both national and personal, she simply could not tap into the righteous anger that had once come like water through a faucet.

Whether Applejack liked it or not, the land was healing her, and the time came that when she doubted her old reaction, she did not fight it, but searched her heart for forgiveness and for faith in her friend’s goodness, goodness she knew still existed but had been bruised and hidden away; and forgiveness crept closer each time, pushing back bitter feelings and high-flown questions of justice and divine right.

“Seems to me,” she told Versus, who knew more than anyone else how Applejack had felt through it all, “Ah’m bein’ humbled by my own self. Ah can accept that, but Ah don’t have to like it.”

Building her house from cast off pieces of cloud and furnishing it with locally-purchased Ponyville goods was, for Sunlit Gables, the missing piece that allowed her to breathe easy. She went back to her roots of smashing clouds together and fighting the wind to keep her project where she wanted, long hours toiling with the floor and walls, trying to hammer corners into shape and sanding edges, molding baseboards on her knees with an emery board in her mouth. She borrowed a shovel from Applejack to dig windows out of the walls and pressed the displaced cloud material into the shape of a decorative chimney.

Then when her royal stipend started up and she could spend more liberally, she took pleasure in procuring her dishware, furniture, decorations, sheets, clothing, knick-knacks. Fluttershy would visit from time to time, but she was the only one Gables was comfortable admitting into her home before it was finished, and they would spend all afternoon pounding cupboards into the walls and stacking them with plastic plates and bowls, then go down for dinner with the others.

Sometimes when they were gathered, Gables would become quiet and withdrawn, and she knew they saw it. Invisible threads of tension still existed between some of them, and though Gables loved her friends, there was nothing quite like sinking into a downy bed at the end of a long day, alone.

Aureole got a house on the edge of town, which she shared with no one, and secured a job with the mayor’s office a month later. Faced at last with nothing to do but live, with no responsibility but that to herself, she feared at first that she would drift and disappear into the countryside one day. She would wake up from a nightmare about Celestia bearing down on her, as big as an office building and crackling with flame, and go shaking to the door to look out at the meadow and bounding stream beyond, the faint mountains so far away, thinking with fear and anger that it all had been in her grasp, once.

But those times faded, and with the spring, as her friends gradually found their places, Aureole found hers. It was no longer her mantle to worry about problems that affected the entire country, but she could solve disputes in town, direct teams of contractors for infrastructure repairs, and put in her opinion on matters of policy.

Sometimes she visited the library, but did not want to lead anyone to compare her to Twilight Sparkle. Aureole studied magic in private, and in public, science; her work in New Trottingham had given her a taste for electricity and machines, which the citizens of Ponyville discovered soon enough.

On a windy Sunday night, Aureole fell asleep reading and woke up to the sound of thunder in the far distance. She lit a candle and peered through her window, setting aside the book she left on the blanket, and listened to the rain for a minute, black shadow on the fields, whispering, cold and pure. She went to the back door to feel the cold mist on her fur, watching the world.

She returned to bed after the storm, looked out the window to see the pale blue coming of dawn, and got up again, walking in slippers and a thin robe out into the wet field. The grass was pale gray under her hooves, and, contemplating her day, Aureole sat and watched the light break through tatters of cloud.

Good morning.